Plant Adaptation to Abiotic Stresses: Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms
A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Response to Abiotic Stress and Climate Change".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2027 | Viewed by 31
Editors
Interests: abiotic stresses; plant hormones; grain filling; seed germination; rice thermo-sensitive female sterility; hybrid rice production; gene expression regulation; signaling transduction; plant growth and development in response to climate change
Interests: maize kernel deveolpment; organellar RNA post-transcriptional processing; signal transduction; abiotic stress; plant physiology; genetic analysis; molecular mechanism
Interests: abiotic stresses adaptation; plant hormone signaling; grain filling mechanism; signaling transduction; plant adaptation to climate change; gene discovery and regulation
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Global climate change has intensified the frequency and severity of abiotic stresses—including drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, heavy metals and flooding—posing unprecedented threats to plant growth and agricultural sustainability. Unlike acute stress responses that often emphasize damage and defense, adaptation encompasses the broader repertoire of adjustments—from rapid physiological acclimation to long-term evolutionary strategies—that enable plants to sustain growth, development, and reproduction under challenging environments. Understanding these adaptive mechanisms is therefore of critical scientific and practical importance.
This Special Issue aims to present a balanced view of how plants adapt to abiotic stresses through integrated physiological adjustments and molecular reprogramming. We seek contributions that investigate adaptive strategies across organizational levels. Physiological topics of interest include osmotic adjustment, water-use efficiency, photosynthetic modulation, root architecture plasticity, and phenological shifts. Molecular contributions may cover stress perception and signal transduction, hormonal crosstalk (particularly ABA), epigenetic modifications, chromatin remodeling, non-coding RNA-mediated regulation, alternative splicing, and transcriptional/post-transcriptional regulatory networks. We particularly encourage studies that bridge classical physiological observations with modern molecular insights, as well as comparative and evolutionary research exploring natural variation, population genomics, and local adaptation signatures.
In this Special Issue, original research articles, reviews, and short communications are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Physiological and biochemical adjustments conferring stress resilience;
- Molecular regulatory networks (transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and epigenetic) driving adaptive responses;
- Hormonal signaling and systemic communication in acclimation;
- Multi-omics approaches to dissecting adaptive traits;
- Natural variation, population genomics, and evolutionary adaptation to abiotic environments;
- Molecular breeding and biotechnological strategies for enhancing stress tolerance.
We look forward to receiving your contributions to this collection.
Prof. Dr. Nenghui Ye
Dr. Rui Liu
Dr. Zhenning Teng
Guest Editors
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. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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
- plant adaptation
- abiotic stress
- physiological acclimation
- molecular regulation
- signal transduction
- phenotypic plasticity
- epigenetic regulation
- multi-omics
- natural variation
- evolutionary adaptation
- stress resilience
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