About this Research Topic
Salt Tolerance: Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms and Breeding Applications
Plants are constantly exposed to changing environmental conditions that, when extreme, can cause plant stress. Soil salinity is a common abiotic stress occuring in arid and semi-arid regions and negatively affects crop yield. Salt accumulation inhibits plant growth and reduces water and nutrient uptake, leading to osmotic or water-deficit stress. Therefore, soil salinity can greatly limit the productivity of agricultural crops, negatively affecting germination, plant vigour, and crop yield. Foreseeing climate change, plant breeders are undertaking efforts to identify and transfer genes for salt tolerance into new cultivars.
Further studies are needed on physiological and metabolic responses observed in species and accessions that are tolerant or resistant to salinity, towards functional characterization of genes involved in adaptation processes. New molecular markers linked to tolerance traits may also provide new opportunities to improve salinity tolerance of certain crops, such as tomato and wheat.
This Research Topic aims to collect knowledge on genetic markers and physiological traits for tolerance and the associated problem of salt stress in many irrigated areas .We welcome contributions (Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspective) covering the following topics:
- Physiological and metabolic studies quantifying the impact of salinity on different traits (growth, water relations, transpiration, transpiration use efficiency, ionic relations, photosynthesis, senescence, yield and yield components)
- Studies on the effects of salinity on plant development
- Studies to identify genetic markers, genotypes and collection sites for salt stress tolerance: genetic loci known to be involved in the control of specific traits in crops can be targeted and investigated in the wild gene pool to seek out novel and rare alleles.
- Deployment of a common set of molecular markers for both crop association studies and QTL mapping studies. - Studies on marker assisted breeding for salt stress tolerance in crop plants.
Descriptive studies reporting responses of growth, yield, or quality to salt stress will not be considered if they do not progress physiological understanding of these responses.
Keywords: Acclimation, Genetic diversity, Molecular markers, QTL mapping, Salinity, Salt stress
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.