Biodiversity Conservation and Stress Biology of Plants in Arid Regions

Dear Colleagues,

Arid regions cover approximately one-third of the Earth’s land surface. Due to the harsh climate in arid regions, only some unusual plants can survive in such regions. Many of the plants are an essential food reserve, especially during droughts. Plants in arid regions are contentiously exposed to an extensive array of environmental stresses such as water-deficit conditions (drought), low-temperature (cold) stress, salt stress conditions, high-temperature (heat) stress, etc. The tolerance and susceptibility of plants under stress conditions are complex factors, and stresses may affect the multiple stages of plant development. Under the influence of abiotic stress, plants change their molecular and physiological fine tuning and try to cope to maintain a healthy state in the face of the molecular and physiological disturbance imposed by the stress conditions. In this disturbance, the maintenance of a healthy state involves gene expression under stress in the form of either structural or regulatory genes. Scientific research on plants in arid areas is necessary to obtain a deeper insight into their structure and physiology adaption strategies.

Despite the functional traits that play a fundamental role in plant persistence and ecosystem diversity in arid regions, our knowledge of physiology in response to various abiotic stresses remains limited. This Special Issue focuses on the biodiversity conservation of plants in arid areas and their responses to abiotic stress and aims to collate papers answering questions relating to the following: (1) plant diversity in arid areas in a changing environment, biodiversity conservation in the arid lands under climate change, etc.; (2) the ecological significance of the response of various plants to extreme environments in arid areas; and (3) the physiology and molecular observations of plant behavior in arid areas. We welcome original research papers, reviews, perspectives, opinions, and modeling approaches regarding the abovementioned.

Dr. Daoyuan Zhang
Dr. Huiliang Liu
Guest Editors

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