Exploring Abiotic Stress in Plants: Mechanisms, Adaptations, and Mitigation Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

The proposed Special Issue delves into the multifaceted realm of “Exploring Abiotic Stress in Plants: Mechanisms, Adaptations, and Mitigation Strategies”, seeking to unravel the intricate mechanisms, adaptive responses, and innovative strategies for mitigating the adverse impacts of environmental stressors on plant growth, development, and productivity. Abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, heavy metals, and nutrient deficiency, pose significant challenges to global agriculture, threatening food security and sustainability. This Special Issue aims to elucidate the underlying physiological, biochemical, and molecular processes involved in plant stress responses while also exploring novel approaches for enhancing stress tolerance and resilience in crops.

The scope of this Special Issue encompasses, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• Physiological and molecular responses: Elucidation of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to abiotic stress, including signaling pathways, gene regulation, and metabolic adjustments.
• Adaptive strategies: Exploration of natural and induced adaptive strategies employed by plants to cope with abiotic stress, such as osmotic adjustment, antioxidant defense mechanisms, and hormonal regulation.
• Genetic diversity and breeding: Assessment of genetic diversity, germplasm screening, and breeding approaches for developing stress-tolerant crop varieties with improved resilience to abiotic stress conditions.
• Omics technologies: Integration of omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, to unravel the complex networks and molecular responses involved in plant abiotic stress tolerance.
• Biotechnological interventions: Application of biotechnological tools and techniques, such as genetic engineering, genome editing, and synthetic biology, to enhance stress tolerance and productivity in crops.
• Crop management practices: Evaluation of agronomic practices, crop management strategies, and precision agriculture techniques for optimizing plant performance under abiotic stress environments.
• Sustainable solutions: The development and implementation of sustainable and eco-friendly approaches for mitigating abiotic stress in plants, including biofortification, soil amendments, and microbial symbiosis.
• Model systems and translational research: Utilization of model plant systems and translational research approaches to elucidate the fundamental principles of abiotic stress tolerance and facilitate knowledge translation to crop improvement programs.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and communications from researchers and experts working in academia, industry, and governmental institutions, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in abiotic stress in plants.

Dr. Tarek Alshaal
Guest Editor

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. 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.

• abiotic stress
• plant physiology
• stress tolerance
• crop resilience
• molecular mechanisms
• biotechnological interventions