Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms of Stress Adaptation in Trees
A Special Issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907) belonging to the section "Genetics and Molecular Biology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2027 | Viewed by 8
Editors
Interests: plant ecophysiology; stomatal regulation; hydraulics; trees; drought
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Plant Conservation and Utilization in Southern China, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Interests: plant ecology; stress physiology; global climate change; plant hydraulics; abiotic stress signaling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Forests are central to global carbon storage, water regulation, and biodiversity, yet they are increasingly exposed to conditions outside their historical range. Rising temperatures, more frequent droughts, salinization, and shifting pest and pathogen distributions are driving canopy dieback and mortality in many regions. Because trees are long-lived and sessile, they cannot migrate away from stress within a generation; their persistence depends on physiological plasticity and the molecular pathways underlying it.
The field has moved from descriptive work on water relations and growth toward mechanistic analysis enabled by genomics and single-cell methods. Woody species remain harder to study than annual models, so mechanistic insight in trees lags behind that in herbaceous plants. Closing this gap is important for both academia and applied forestry, where provenance selection, assisted migration, and breeding for resilience depend on knowing which traits and genes actually matter.
This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances in the physiological and molecular mechanisms of stress adaptation in trees. We invite contributions linking stress perception and signalling to measurable physiological and structural outcomes, across species, provenances, and field-to-laboratory settings.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Drought- and heat-tolerance mechanisms in woody species;
- Hydraulic architecture, embolism resistance, and water-use strategies;
- Phytohormone and redox signalling under abiotic stress;
- Multi-omics and single-cell approaches to tree stress responses;
- Epigenetic regulation and stress memory;
- Salinity, cold, and heavy-metal stress physiology;
- Root–microbiome interactions;
- Functional validation of candidate stress-tolerance genes.
Dr. Md. Mahadi Hasan
Guest Editor
Dr. Muhammad Waseem
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- forest trees
- abiotic stress
- drought tolerance
- stress signalling
- multi-omics
- phytohormones
- epigenetic stress memory
- hydraulic traits
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