Over the past 50 years, cereals such as maize, rice, wheat, sorghum, and barley have emerged as rapidly evolving crops because of new technologies and advances in agronomy, breeding, biotechnology, genetics, and so on. Population growth and climate change have led to new challenges, among which are feeding the growing global population and mitigating adverse effects on the environment. One way to deal with these issues is through sustainable cereal production. This book discusses ways to achieve sustainable production of cereals via agronomy, breeding, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Chapters review research, examine challenges, and present prospects in the field. This volume is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and scientists interested in and working in the area of sustainable crop production.
Abiotic stress represents the main constraint for agriculture, affecting plant growth and productivity worldwide. Yield losses in agriculture will be potentiated in the future by global warming, increasing contamination, and reduced availability of fertile land. The challenge for agriculture of the present and future is that of increasing the food supply for a continuously growing human population under environmental conditions that are deteriorating in many areas of the world. Minimizing the effects of diverse types of abiotic stresses represents a matter of general concern. Research on all topics related to abiotic stress tolerance, from understanding the stress response mechanisms of plants to developing cultivars and crops tolerant to stress, is a priority. This Special Issue is focused on the physiological and molecular characterization of crop resistance to abiotic stresses, including novel research, reviews, and opinion articles covering all aspects of the responses and mechanisms of plant tolerance to abiotic. Contributions on physiological, biochemical, and molecular studies of crop responses to abiotic stresses; the description and role of stress-responsive genes; marker-assisted screening of stress-tolerant genotypes; genetic engineering; and other biotechnological approaches to improve crop tolerance were considered.
To comprehend the organizational principle of cellular functions at diff erent levels, an integrative approach with large-scale experiments, the so-called ‘omics’ data including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, is needed. Omics aims at the collective characterization and quantifi cation of pools of biological molecules that translate into the structure, function, and dynamics of an organism or organisms. Currently, omics is an essential tool to understand the molecular systems that underlie various plant functions. Furthermore, in several plant species, the development of omicsresources has progressed to address the particular biological properties of individual species. Integration of knowledge from omics-based research is an emerging issue as researchers seek to identify significance, gain biological insights and promote translational research. From these perspectives, we intend to provide the emerging aspects of plant systems research based on omics and bioinformatics analyses together with their associated resources and technological advances. Th e present book covers a wide range of omics topics, and discusses the latest trends and application area of plant sciences. In this volume, we have highlighted the working solutions as well as open problems and future challenges in plant omics studies. We believe that this book will initiate and introduce readers to state-of-the-art developments and trends in omics-driven research.
Drought is one of the most severe constraints to crop productivity worldwide, and thus it has become a major concern for global food security. Due to an increasing world population, droughts could lead to serious food shortages by 2050. The situation may worsen due to predicated climatic changes that may increase the frequency, duration and severity of droughts. Hence, there is an urgent need to improve our understanding of the complex mechanisms associated with drought tolerance and to develop modern crop varieties that are more resilient to drought. Identification of the genes responsible for drought tolerance in plants will contribute to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that could enable crop plants to respond to drought. The discovery of novel drought related genes, the analysis of their expression patterns in response to drought, and determination of the functions these genes play in drought adaptation will provide a base to develop effective strategies to enhance the drought tolerance of crop plants. Plant breeding efforts to increase crop yields in dry environments have been slow to date mainly due to our poor understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms involved in how plants respond to drought. In addition, when it comes to combining favourable alleles, there are practical obstacles to developing superior high yielding genotypes fit for drought prone environments. Drought Tolerance in Plants, Vol 2: Molecular and Genetic Perspectives combines novel topical findings, regarding the major molecular and genetic events associated with drought tolerance, with contemporary crop improvement approaches. This volume is unique as it makes available for its readers not only extensive reports of existing facts and data, but also practical knowledge and overviews of state-of-the-art technologies, across the biological fields, from plant breeding using classical and molecular genetic information, to the modern omic technologies, that are now being used in drought tolerance research to breed drought-related traits into modern crop varieties. This book is useful for teachers and researchers in the fields of plant breeding, molecular biology and biotechnology.
This book focuses on early germination, one of maize germplasm most important strategies for adapting to drought-induced stress. Some genotypes have the ability to adapt by either reducing water losses or by increasing water uptake. Drought tolerance is also an adaptive strategy that enables crop plants to maintain their normal physiological processes and deliver higher economical yield despite drought stress. Several processes are involved in conferring drought tolerance in maize: the accumulation of osmolytes or antioxidants, plant growth regulators, stress proteins and water channel proteins, transcription factors and signal transduction pathways. Drought is one of the most detrimental forms of abiotic stress around the world and seriously limits the productivity of agricultural crops. Maize, one of the leading cereal crops in the world, is sensitive to drought stress. Maize harvests are affected by drought stress at different growth stages in different regions. Numerous events in the life of maize crops can be affected by drought stress: germination potential, seedling growth, seedling stand establishment, overall growth and development, pollen and silk development, anthesis silking interval, pollination, and embryo, endosperm and kernel development. Though every maize genotype has the ability to avoid or withstand drought stress, there is a concrete need to improve the level of adaptability to drought stress to address the global issue of food security. The most common biological strategies for improving drought stress resistance include screening available maize germplasm for drought tolerance, conventional breeding strategies, and marker-assisted and genomic-assisted breeding and development of transgenic maize. As a comprehensive understanding of the effects of drought stress, adaptive strategies and potential breeding tools is the prerequisite for any sound breeding plan, this brief addresses these aspects.
Demystifies the genetic, biochemical, physiological, and molecular mechanisms underlying heat stress tolerance in plants Heat stress—when high temperatures cause irreversible damage to plant function or development—severely impairs the growth and yield of agriculturally important crops. As the global population mounts and temperatures continue to rise, it is crucial to understand the biochemical, physiological, and molecular mechanisms of thermotolerance to develop ‘climate-smart’ crops. Heat Stress Tolerance in Plants provides a holistic, cross-disciplinary survey of the latest science in this important field. Presenting contributions from an international team of plant scientists and researchers, this text examines heat stress, its impact on crop plants, and various mechanisms to modulate tolerance levels. Topics include recent advances in molecular genetic approaches to increasing heat tolerance, the potential role of biochemical and molecular markers in screening germplasm for thermotolerance, and the use of next-generation sequencing to unravel the novel genes associated with defense and metabolite pathways. This insightful book: Places contemporary research on heat stress in plants within the context of global climate change and population growth Includes diverse analyses from physiological, biochemical, molecular, and genetic perspectives Explores various approaches to increasing heat tolerance in crops of high commercial value, such as cotton Discusses the applications of plant genomics in the development of thermotolerant ‘designer crops’ An important contribution to the field, Heat Stress Tolerance in Plants is an invaluable resource for scientists, academics, students, and researchers working in fields of pulse crop biochemistry, physiology, genetics, breeding, and biotechnology.
Key features: Serves as a cutting-edge resource for researchers and students who are studying plant abiotic stress tolerance and crop improvement through metabolic adaptations Presents the latest trends and developments in the field of metabolic engineering and abiotic stress tolerance Addresses the adaptation of plants to climatic changes Gives special attention to emerging topics such as the role of secondary metabolites, small RNA mediated regulation and signaling molecule responses to stresses Provides extensive references that serve as entry points for further research Metabolic Adaptations in Plants during Abiotic Stress covers a topic of past, present and future interest for both scientists and policy makers as the global challenge of climate change is addressed. Understanding the mechanisms of plant adaptation to environmental stresses can provide the necessary tools needed to take action to protect them, and hence ourselves. This book brings together recent findings about metabolic adaptations during abiotic stress and in diverse areas of plant adaptation. It covers not only the published results, but also introduces new concepts and findings to offer original views on the perspectives and challenges in this field.
This book provides up-to-date knowledge of the promising field of Nanobiotechnology with emphasis on the mitigation approaches to combat plant abiotic stress factors, including drought, salinity, waterlog, temperature extremes, mineral nutrients, and heavy metals. These factors adversely affect the growth as well as yield of crop plants worldwide, especially under the global climate change. Nanobiotechnology is viewed to revolutionize crop productivity in future. The chapters discuss the status and prospects of this cutting-edge technology toward understanding tolerance mechanisms, including signaling molecules and enzymes regulation in addition to the applications of Nanobiotechnology to combat individual abiotic stress factors.
Crops experience an assortment of environmental stresses which include abiotic viz., drought, water logging, salinity, extremes of temperature, high variability in radiation, subtle but perceptible changes in atmospheric gases and biotic viz., insects, birds, other pests, weeds, pathogens (viruses and other microbes). The ability to tolerate or adapt and overwinter by effectively countering these stresses is a very multifaceted phenomenon. In addition, the inability to do so which renders the crops susceptible is again the result of various exogenous and endogenous interactions in the ecosystem. Both biotic and abiotic stresses occur at various stages of plant development and frequently more than one stress concurrently affects the crop. Stresses result in both universal and definite effects on plant growth and development. One of the imposing tasks for the crop researchers globally is to distinguish and to diminish effects of these stress factors on the performance of crop plants, especially with respect to yield and quality of harvested products. This is of special significance in view of the impending climate change, with complex consequences for economically profitable and ecologically and environmentally sound global agriculture. The challenge at the hands of the crop scientist in such a scenario is to promote a competitive and multifunctional agriculture, leading to the production of highly nourishing, healthy and secure food and animal feed as well as raw materials for a wide variety of industrial applications. In order to successfully meet this challenge researchers have to understand the various aspects of these stresses in view of the current development from molecules to ecosystems. The book will focus on broad research areas in relation to these stresses which are in the forefront in contemporary crop stress research.
