As a result of global warming and climate change, the number and intensity of weather events such as droughts, heat waves, and floods are increasing, resulting in major losses in crop yield worldwide. Combined with the accumulation of different pollutants, this situation is leading to a gradual increase in the complexity of environmental factors affecting plants. We recently used the term 'multifactorial stress combination' (MFSC) to describe the impact of three or more stressors occurring simultaneously or sequentially on plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants growing under natural conditions experience high light (HL) intensities that are often accompanied by elevated temperatures. These conditions could affect photosynthesis, reduce yield, and negatively impact agricultural productivity. The combination of different abiotic challenges creates a new type of stress for plants by generating complex environmental conditions that often exceed the impact of their individual parts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo successfully survive, develop, grow and reproduce, multicellular organisms must coordinate their molecular, physiological, developmental and metabolic responses among their different cells and tissues. This process is mediated by cell-to-cell, vascular and/or volatile communication, and involves electric, chemical and/or hydraulic signals. Within this context, stomata serve a dual role by coordinating their responses to the environment with their neighbouring cells at the epidermis, but also with other stomata present on other parts of the plant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal warming, climate change, and industrial pollution are altering our environment subjecting plants, microbiomes, and ecosystems to an increasing number and complexity of abiotic stress conditions, concurrently or sequentially. These conditions, termed, "multifactorial stress combination" (MFSC), can cause a significant decline in plant growth and survival. However, the impacts of MFSC on reproductive tissues and yield of major crop plants are largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe complexity of environmental conditions encountered by plants in the field, or in nature, is gradually increasing due to anthropogenic activities that promote global warming, climate change, and increased levels of pollutants. While in the past it seemed sufficient to study how plants acclimate to one or even two different stresses affecting them simultaneously, the complex conditions developing on our planet necessitate a new approach of studying stress in plants: Acclimation to multiple stress conditions occurring concurrently or consecutively (termed, multifactorial stress combination [MFSC]). In an initial study of the plant response to MFSC, conducted with Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings subjected to an MFSC of six different abiotic stresses, it was found that with the increase in the number and complexity of different stresses simultaneously impacting a plant, plant growth and survival declined, even if the effects of each stress involved in such MFSC on the plant was minimal or insignificant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe complexity of environmental factors affecting crops in the field is gradually increasing due to climate change-associated weather events, such as droughts or floods combined with heat waves, coupled with the accumulation of different environmental and agricultural pollutants. The impact of multiple stress conditions on plants was recently termed "multifactorial stress combination" (MFSC) and defined as the occurrence of 3 or more stressors that impact plants simultaneously or sequentially. We recently reported that with the increased number and complexity of different MFSC stressors, the growth and survival of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) seedlings declines, even if the level of each individual stress is low enough to have no significant effect on plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal warming and climate change are driving an alarming increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events, such as droughts, heat waves, and their combination, inflicting heavy losses to agricultural production. Recent studies revealed that the transcriptomic responses of different crops to water deficit (WD) or heat stress (HS) are very different from that to a combination of WD + HS. In addition, it was found that the effects of WD, HS, and WD + HS are significantly more devastating when these stresses occur during the reproductive growth phase of crops, compared to vegetative growth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts, heat waves, and their combinations, diminishing agricultural productivity and destabilizing societies worldwide. We recently reported that during a combination of water deficit (WD) and heat stress (HS), stomata on leaves of soybean (Glycine max) plants are closed, while stomata on flowers are open. This unique stomatal response was accompanied by differential transpiration (higher in flowers, while lower in leaves) that cooled flowers during a combination of WD + HS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeat waves occurring during droughts can have a devastating impact on yield, especially if they happen during the flowering and seed set stages of the crop cycle. Global warming and climate change are driving an alarming increase in the frequency and intensity of combined drought and heat stress episodes, critically threatening global food security. Because high temperature is detrimental to reproductive processes, essential for plant yield, we measured the inner temperature, transpiration, sepal stomatal aperture, hormone concentrations and transcriptomic response of closed soybean flowers developing on plants subjected to a combination of drought and heat stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHistorically, extended droughts combined with heat waves caused severe reductions in crop yields estimated at billions of dollars annually. Because global warming and climate change are driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of combined water-deficit and heat stress episodes, understanding how these episodes impact yield is critical for our efforts to develop climate change-resilient crops. Recent studies demonstrated that a combination of water-deficit and heat stress exacerbates the impacts of water-deficit or heat stress on reproductive processes of different cereals and legumes, directly impacting grain production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRhizoctonia bataticola causes dry root rot (DRR), a devastating disease in chickpea (Cicer arietinum). DRR incidence increases under water deficit stress and high temperature. However, the roles of other edaphic and environmental factors remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants exposed to the combination of drought and pathogen infections are in a unique state, different from that of plants exposed to each stress alone. Plants undergo major hormonal changes during drought and/or pathogen infection, highlighting the importance of hormones as crucial mediators of plant stress responses. Evidence from individual stress studies has shown that drought and pathogen infection have both different and overlapping impacts on hormone metabolism and hormone-associated signal transduction pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrought stress and pathogen infection simultaneously occur in the field. In this study, the interaction of these two stresses with chickpea, their individual and combined effect and the net impact on plant growth and yield traits were systematically assessed under field and confined pot experiments. The field experiments were conducted for four consecutive years from 2014-15 to 2017-18 at different locations of India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChickpea (); the second largest legume grown worldwide is prone to drought and various pathogen infections. These drought and pathogen stresses often occur concurrently in the field conditions. However, the molecular events in response to that are largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn field conditions, plants are concurrently exposed to multiple stresses, where one stressor impacts the plant's response to another stressor, and the resultant net effect of these stresses differs from individual stress response. The present study investigated the effect of drought stress on interaction of chickpea with Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola (Psp; foliar pathogen) and Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs; xylem inhabiting wilt causing pathogen), respectively, and the net-effect of combined stress on chlorophyll content and cell death.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolyamines play very important role in various cellular metabolic functions, including floral induction, floral differentiation and fertility regulation. In the present study, S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC), a key gene involved in polyamine biosynthesis, has been targeted in tapetal tissue of tomato using RNAi to examine its effect on tapetum development and pollen viability. The target SAMDC gene fragments of three homologues were cloned in a hairpin RNA construct under the control of tapetal-specific A9 promoter, which was used to generate several RNAi tomato plants.
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