Climate change poses urgent challenges to global food security, particularly given the rising global population. Cultivated plants are increasingly exposed to sub-optimal or adverse environmental conditions. Various abiotic stresses (e.g. salinity, drought, floods, extreme temperatures, heavy metals, ozone, UV radiation, and nutrient deficiencies), negatively influence crop growth and development, causing a marked decrease in annual crop productivity. Under such circumstances, plants must develop a broad range of physiological, biochemical, and morphological strategies to offset the negative impacts of these new and developing environmental stressors.

Modulating plants’ cellular machinery is an essential step in improving their capacity to
endure adverse environmental conditions. Recent research is particularly drawn to the
adjustments in primary and secondary plant metabolism, activated through various
interconnected biochemical pathways.

This Research Topic is focused on exploring the complexities of plant metabolism, aiming to improve our understanding of intricate, stress-mediated changes in plants cultivated under adverse conditions, specifically those triggered by climate change. To mitigate the effects of these stressors, we need better insight into how plants perceive stress signals and respond at physiological, biochemical, transcriptional, and metabolic levels. More in-depth studies dealing with the plant-specialized metabolism during abiotic stress, employing various approaches, including genetics, biochemistry, transgenic techniques, and omics technologies on model or crop plants, are especially welcome to this Research Topic. These advances can refine our mechanistic understanding of plant metabolism and functional acclimation to various environmental constraints, thus opening new avenues for progress in the realm of stress resistance. Findings will provide the basis for improvement programs and ultimately aid in designing new elite adaptive genotypes by leveraging technology, e.g., cross-breeding or genetic engineering. In order to explore the hidden features of stress-mediated changes in plant metabolism mechanistically, we are interested in submissions that cover, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Elucidation of primary and secondary biochemical pathways and the underlying
regulatory mechanisms in plants affected by abiotic stress;
• Identification and characterization of candidate metabolite biomarkers;
• Biosynthesis, transport, and signaling kinetics of plant metabolites under abiotic
stress conditions;
• Functional characterizations of novel stress-related candidate genes;
• Functions of secondary metabolites in fine-tuning the environmental stress tolerance
of plants;
• Potential role of phytohormones in orchestrating the primary and secondary
metabolic arrangement in plants under abiotic stress;
• Interaction between environmental constraints and the trade-off against each other
at the metabolic level.

Article types including original research, reviews, mini-reviews, commentary, protocols, opinions, and perspectives are all welcome.

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Frontiers in Plant Science

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