Abiotic stress, the field environment and stress combination

doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2005.11.002

Trends in Plant Science

Volume 11, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 15-19

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2005.11.002 Get rights and content

Farmers and breeders have long known that often it is the simultaneous occurrence of several abiotic stresses, rather than a particular stress condition, that is most lethal to crops. Surprisingly, the co-occurrence of different stresses is rarely addressed by molecular biologists that study plant acclimation. Recent studies have revealed that the response of plants to a combination of two different abiotic stresses is unique and cannot be directly extrapolated from the response of plants to each of the different stresses applied individually. Tolerance to a combination of different stress conditions, particularly those that mimic the field environment, should be the focus of future research programs aimed at developing transgenic crops and plants with enhanced tolerance to naturally occurring environmental conditions.

Section snippets

Abiotic stress research: a reality check

Abiotic stress conditions cause extensive losses to agricultural production worldwide 1, 2. Individually, stress conditions such as drought, salinity or heat have been the subject of intense research 2, 3. However, in the field, crops and other plants are routinely subjected to a combination of different abiotic stresses 4, 5, 6, 7. In drought-stricken areas, for example, many crops encounter a combination of drought and other stresses, such as heat or salinity 4, 5. Recent studies have

Tailoring a response to a particular stress situation

Plant acclimation to a particular abiotic stress condition requires a specific response that is tailored to the precise environmental conditions the plant encounters. Thus, molecular, biochemical and physiological processes set in motion by a specific stress condition might differ from those activated by a slightly different composition of environmental parameters. Illustrating this point are transcriptome profiling studies of plants subjected to different abiotic stress conditions: each

Case study: drought and heat stress

Drought and heat stress represent an excellent example of two different abiotic stress conditions that occur in the field simultaneously 5, 6, 7. Several studies have examined the effects of a combination of drought and heat stress on the growth and productivity of maize, barley, sorghum and different grasses. It was found that a combination of drought and heat stress had a significantly greater detrimental effect on the growth and productivity of these plants and crops compared with each of

Regulatory aspects of stress combination: a key to enhancing tolerance?

Enhancing plant tolerance to biotic or abiotic stress conditions by activating a stress-response signal transduction pathway in transgenic plants is a powerful and promising approach 3, 27, 28, 29. It is logical to assume that the simultaneous exposure of a plant to different abiotic stress conditions will result in the co-activation of different stress-response pathways. These might have a synergistic or antagonistic effect on each other. In addition, dedicated pathways specific for the

Summary and conclusions: the ‘stress matrix’

The extent of damage caused to agriculture by a combination of two different stresses (Figure 1) underscores the need to develop crops and plants with enhanced tolerance to a combination of different abiotic stresses. Drawing upon the limited physiological, molecular and metabolic studies performed with plants that were simultaneously subjected to two different abiotic stresses (Figure 2, Figure 3) 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 23, 24, 25, 26, it is not sufficient to study each of the individual

Acknowledgements

Research in my laboratory is supported by funding from The National Science Foundation (NSF-0431327; NSF-0420033) and The Nevada Agricultural Experimental Station (Publication number 03055517).

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View full text

Trends in Plant Science

Abiotic stress, the field environment and stress combination

Section snippets

Abiotic stress research: a reality check

Tailoring a response to a particular stress situation

Case study: drought and heat stress

Regulatory aspects of stress combination: a key to enhancing tolerance?

Summary and conclusions: the ‘stress matrix’

Acknowledgements

Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.

Trends Plant Sci.

Ternds Plant Sci.

Trends Plant Sci.

Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.

Environ. Pollut.

Environ. Pollut.

Plant productivity and environment

Science

Responses to abiotic stresses

Finding new ways to protect drought-stricken plants

Science

Genetic studies of heat and drought tolerance in maize

J. Am. Soc. Agro.

Effect of heat and drought stress on sorghum

Exp. Agric.

Drought and heat stress injury to two cool season turfgrasses in relation to antioxidant metabolism and lipid peroxidation

Crop Sci.

Molecular and biochemical mechanisms associated with dormancy and drought tolerance in the desert legume Retama raetam

Plant J.

The combined effect of drought stress and heat shock on gene expression in tobacco

Plant Physiol.

When defense pathways collide: the response of Arabidopsis to a combination of drought and heat stress

Plant Physiol.

Enhanced tolerance to environmental stress in transgenic plants expressing the transcriptional co-activator Multiprotein Bridging Factor 1c

Plant Physiol.

Fungal pathogen protection in potato by expression of a plant defensin peptide

Nat. Biotechnol.

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Plant Cell