Plant Stress and Acclimation Responses During Global Warming

Dear Colleagues,

Terrestrial plants contribute to the Earth’s carbon and energy balance, being responsible for about 20% of global photosynthesis and thus for significant CO₂ assimilation, cooling the atmosphere via transpiration and evaporation. However, as global warming progresses, plants are more exposed to environmental stresses such as excessive light, high temperatures, drought, and water depravation, all of which affect critical physiological and molecular processes such as photosynthesis, transpiration, and absorbed energy dissipation as heat. Therefore, better understanding of the mechanisms that control plant responses to absorbed energy in excess (AEE), particularly non-photochemical quenching (NPQ), inhibition of photosynthetic electron transport, photorespiration, and foliar thermoregulation, together with heat shock responses and cell death regulation, is crucial as these processes determine the balance between photosynthesis and photoinhibition, deciding whether leaves can less or more efficiently cool down during heat waves. Current climate models fail to account for the conditional variability in foliar heat emission caused by these conditional physiological responses, leaving considerable gaps in the prediction of ecosystem behavior and climate dynamics.

We welcome all manuscripts furthering the understanding of the above mechanisms of these complex AEE, heat, and water deprivation stress responses.

Prof. Dr. Stanisław Karpiński
Guest Editor

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