Ancient Origins of Modern Stress Resilience Pathways: A Glimpse into the History of how Plants Honed their Defensive Strategies against Abiotic Adversities

At a glance, modern-day land plants exhibit an array of diverse and highly regulated responses to numerous abiotic stressors that are constantly present in their growth environment. Even though global warming and climate change are complications introduced by recent times, these adversities, however, are not completely new to plants. It is widely accepted that all modern land plants share the same common ancestor: the Streptophyte algae. The most likely scenario entailed a transition of this ancestor from an aquatic to terrestrial habitat. This shift in lifestyle necessitated acclimation and adaptation to more adverse conditions such as dryer conditions, higher temperatures, osmotic stress, increased ROS, etc. Possibly, the ancestor of terrestrial plants either had to innovate novel stress responsive pathways or modify existing ones to cope with these distinct stressors.

In this Research Topic, we are looking to understand the global perspective of how abiotic stress resistance originated in the plant kingdom and its subsequent divergence in modern plant lineages. Using comparative genomics as a steppingstone, this would allow for the assessment of how exactly the ancestral states of these pathways were adjusted to cope with new challenges. Moreover, this will shed light on the general path followed by green plants to evolve and adapt in relation to their surroundings. Overall, this will greatly enhance our understanding on how existing stress tolerance pathways evolve into more complex forms and pave the way in generating novel solutions to help plants adapt to the drastic effects of climate change.

All article types that contribute to this theme are welcomed from researchers all over the world.

Please note: Frontiers in Plant Science does not accept solely descriptive studies - studies which report responses to treatments and descriptive reports of ‘Omics studies will not be considered if they do not progress biological understanding of these responses. .