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Carbon Management during Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stresses
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Carbon Management during Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stresses

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: closed (20 March 2025) | Viewed by 3080

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Valentino Casolo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
Interests: plant physiology and applied plant biology; plant response to abiotic stresses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ongoing climate change researchers are facing significant challenges to reveal the mechanistic response of plants in terms of morphological, anatomical, and physiological acclimation to stress. Filling this knowledge gap could help breeders to promote crops varieties that can tolerate heat waves, drought or waterlogging events and farmers to implement more sustainable agriculture management. Furthermore, this could help governments to improve biodiversity conservation and restoration programs.

Plant responses to abiotic stresses depend on carbohydrate availability in terms of energy, osmotic requirements and C skeletons for metabolic pathways. For this reason, it is globally accepted that non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) play a key role during stress and recovery. However, the mechanistic processes explaining how non-structural carbohydrates play such a role are far from being deeply understood. Since the decoupling of C assimilation and growth has already been observed during abiotic stress, a second pivotal field of investigation is the carbon interplay between growth and stress response.

For these reasons, in this Special Issue, I wish to collect both experimental and modelling articles from the molecular to the ecological level, in order to depict plant carbon balance and investigate the role of plant non-structural carbohydrates, in response to abiotic stresses.

Dr. Valentino Casolo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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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

  • carbon balance
  • non-structural carbohydrates
  • drought
  • chilling
  • waterlogging
  • salt stress
  • plant growth

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 6542 KiB  
Article
Unveiling the Cold Acclimation of Alfalfa: Insights into Its Starch-Soluble Sugar Dynamic Transformation
by Lin Zhu, Zhiyong Li, Xiaoqing Zhang, Guomei Yin, Siqi Liu, Jinmei Zhao, Ying Yun, Maowei Guo and Jiaqi Zhang
Plants 2025, 14(9), 1313; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14091313 - 26 Apr 2025
Viewed by 186
Abstract
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a globally distributed economic legume crop used for forage and ecological restoration. We aimed to explore the mechanisms underlying the cold acclimation observed in this species. Our results for fall plant growth showed that non-dormant alfalfa (SD) [...] Read more.
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a globally distributed economic legume crop used for forage and ecological restoration. We aimed to explore the mechanisms underlying the cold acclimation observed in this species. Our results for fall plant growth showed that non-dormant alfalfa (SD) maintained a vigorous growth rate compared to that of fall-dormant alfalfa (ZD); however, the winter survival rate of ZD was higher than that of SD. Among the ZD samples, the starch content first accumulated and then decreased; the sucrose content was consumed first along with simultaneous raffinose accumulation, which was followed by sucrose content accumulation, with consistent changes in the corresponding related synthase and hydrolase activity. SD exhibited the opposite trend. The transcriptome data showed that most of the differentially expressed genes were involved in carbon metabolism (ko01200), amino acid biosynthesis (ko01230), and starch and sucrose metabolism (ko00500). Our data clearly show that alfalfa’s cold acclimation mechanism is a complex process, with the establishment of stable carbon homeostasis; sucrose is first converted into starch and raffinose, and then, starch is converted into sucrose, which enables alfalfa’s cold resistance. The process is accompanied by CBF/DREB1A TF regulation. This study provides important insights into the cold acclimation mechanisms of alfalfa. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Management during Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stresses)
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13 pages, 977 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Water Availability on the Carbon Content of Grain and Above- and Belowground Residues in Common and Einkorn Wheat
by Ivana Raimanova, Pavel Svoboda, Michal Moulik, Jana Wollnerova and Jan Haberle
Plants 2024, 13(2), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13020181 - 9 Jan 2024
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Abstract
The carbon (C) fixed by crops, which is exported with harvest and retained as postharvest residues in a field, is important for calculating the C balance. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of water availability on the C content [...] Read more.
The carbon (C) fixed by crops, which is exported with harvest and retained as postharvest residues in a field, is important for calculating the C balance. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of water availability on the C content in whole wheat plants. In a three-year field trial, the weights of grain, straw, chaff, stubble, and roots of two cultivars of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and one cultivar of einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum L.) and their carbon contents were determined in water stress, irrigation, and rain-fed control treatments. The water availability, year, and cultivar had a significant influence on the C content in aboveground plant parts, but the effect of water on grain C was weak. The C content decreased with irrigation and increased with drought, but the differences were small (at most, 3.39% in chaff). On average, the C contents of grain, straw, chaff, and roots reached 45.0, 45.7, 42.6, and 34.9%, respectively. The amount of C exported with grain and left on the field in the form of postharvest residues depended on the weight of the total biomass and the ratio of grain to straw and residue. Whole plant C yield reached 8.99, 7.46, and 9.65 t ha−1 in rain-fed control, stressed, and irrigated treatments, respectively, and 8.91, 9.45, and 7.47 t ha−1 in Artix, Butterfly, and Rumona, respectively. Irrigation significantly increased the C content in grain and straw (but not in chaff, stubble, and roots) in comparison with water shortage conditions. On average, a grain yield of 1 t ha−1 corresponded to an average export of 0.447–0.454 t C ha−1 in the grain of all cultivars and inputs of 0.721, 0.832, and 2.207 t C ha−1 of residue to the soil in the form of straw and postharvest residue in the two cultivars of common wheat and one of einkorn. The results of the study provided reliable data for the calculation of the C balance of wheat under conditions of different water availability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Management during Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stresses)
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Review

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17 pages, 1411 KiB  
Review
Exploring the Role of Non-Structural Carbohydrates (NSCs) Under Abiotic Stresses on Woody Plants: A Comprehensive Review
by Ayesha Fazal Nawaz, Sara Gargiulo, Alessandro Pichierri and Valentino Casolo
Plants 2025, 14(3), 328; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14030328 - 22 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1051
Abstract
Global climate change has increased the severity and frequency of abiotic stresses, posing significant challenges to the survival and growth of woody plants. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), including starch and sugars, play a vital role in enabling plants to withstand these stresses, helping to [...] Read more.
Global climate change has increased the severity and frequency of abiotic stresses, posing significant challenges to the survival and growth of woody plants. Non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), including starch and sugars, play a vital role in enabling plants to withstand these stresses, helping to stabilize cellular functions by buffering plant energy demands and facilitating recovery on the alleviation of stress. Despite the recognized multiple functions of NSCs, the contrasting effects of multiple abiotic stresses on NSCs dynamics in woody plants remain poorly understood. This review aims to explore the current knowledge of the contrasting effects of abiotic stress conditions including drought, salinity, heat, water logging, and cold on NSCs dynamics. The roles of NSCs in regulating stress-resilience responses in woody plants are also discussed, along with the challenges in NSC measurement, and options for future research directions are explored. This review is based on comprehensive literature research across different search engines like Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar (2000–2024) using targeted keywords. This study compiles the current research on NSCs functions and provides insights into the adaptive strategies of woody plants in response to changing climate conditions, providing groundwork for future research to improve stress tolerance in woody plants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Carbon Management during Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stresses)
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