Climate change accelerates environmental stresses such as heatwaves, drought, and salinity. However, the majority of crop plants are sensitive to these stresses and huge yield penalties occur when they are exposed to these stresses. In their natural environments, plants have to adapt to their surrounding environment even during harsh conditions such as extreme salinity, drought, high or low temperatures. Unlike crop plants, extremophile plants or extremophytes (halophytes, xerophytes, resurrection plants, metal hyperaccumulators etc.) have evolved to complete their life cycles under these harsh conditions, and have developed mechanisms to cope with various stresses at anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. In the past few decades, especially after the development of NGS technologies, plant scientists have shown a great interest in understanding the molecular genetic background of tolerance mechanisms in these astonishing plants and in transferring this knowledge to cultivated crops. This is especially feasible when an extremophyte is a close relative of a crop plant. Amid the climate change scenario, transferring the traits from or understanding the tolerance mechanisms in the extremophiles is very promising in developing crops better adapted to the most challenging environments.
Crops are sensitive to various abiotic stresses, leading to huge yield losses worldwide and threatening global food security. To address this problem, this research topic aims to collect studies related to deciphering stress tolerance mechanisms in extremophytes and use this information to improve stress tolerance of crops for safeguarding yield. Studies related to understanding novel tolerance mechanisms of extremophytes are also acceptable since they form the knowledge base required for crop improvement.
This research topic covers various physiological, biochemical, molecular, and genetic aspects of stress tolerance mechanisms in extremophytes. We invite contributions that are related, but not limited to, the following sub-topics:
• Elucidation of novel stress tolerance mechanisms in halophytes, xerophytes, resurrection plants, metal hyperaccumulators, or other extremophytes.
• Understanding redox regulation and antioxidant defense of extremophytes.
• Understanding extremophyte stress tolerance mechanisms from the evolutionary viewpoint in comparison to crops.
• Identification and characterization of new stress-related genomic resources.
• Investigation of primary and secondary metabolisms of extremophytes under stress.
• Interplay between different plant hormones and their roles in tolerance of extremophytes.
• Use of extremophytes to improve crop stress tolerance and yield through modern biotechnological tools.
Climate change accelerates environmental stresses such as heatwaves, drought, and salinity. However, the majority of crop plants are sensitive to these stresses and huge yield penalties occur when they are exposed to these stresses. In their natural environments, plants have to adapt to their surrounding environment even during harsh conditions such as extreme salinity, drought, high or low temperatures. Unlike crop plants, extremophile plants or extremophytes (halophytes, xerophytes, resurrection plants, metal hyperaccumulators etc.) have evolved to complete their life cycles under these harsh conditions, and have developed mechanisms to cope with various stresses at anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. In the past few decades, especially after the development of NGS technologies, plant scientists have shown a great interest in understanding the molecular genetic background of tolerance mechanisms in these astonishing plants and in transferring this knowledge to cultivated crops. This is especially feasible when an extremophyte is a close relative of a crop plant. Amid the climate change scenario, transferring the traits from or understanding the tolerance mechanisms in the extremophiles is very promising in developing crops better adapted to the most challenging environments.
Crops are sensitive to various abiotic stresses, leading to huge yield losses worldwide and threatening global food security. To address this problem, this research topic aims to collect studies related to deciphering stress tolerance mechanisms in extremophytes and use this information to improve stress tolerance of crops for safeguarding yield. Studies related to understanding novel tolerance mechanisms of extremophytes are also acceptable since they form the knowledge base required for crop improvement.
This research topic covers various physiological, biochemical, molecular, and genetic aspects of stress tolerance mechanisms in extremophytes. We invite contributions that are related, but not limited to, the following sub-topics:
• Elucidation of novel stress tolerance mechanisms in halophytes, xerophytes, resurrection plants, metal hyperaccumulators, or other extremophytes.
• Understanding redox regulation and antioxidant defense of extremophytes.
• Understanding extremophyte stress tolerance mechanisms from the evolutionary viewpoint in comparison to crops.
• Identification and characterization of new stress-related genomic resources.
• Investigation of primary and secondary metabolisms of extremophytes under stress.
• Interplay between different plant hormones and their roles in tolerance of extremophytes.
• Use of extremophytes to improve crop stress tolerance and yield through modern biotechnological tools.
