Physiological Responses of Microalgae and Macroalgae to Environmental Stress

Dear Colleagues,

We invite submissions to a Special Issue of Plants focused on how microalgae and macroalgae sense, tolerate, and adapt to environmental stress. As marine ecophysiologists, we know these primary producers sit at the heart of biogeochemical cycles and coastal resilience—yet face intensifying pressures from warming, acidification, salinity shifts, nutrient imbalance, irradiance extremes, and pollutants.

This Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms that microalgae and macroalgae employ to cope with environmental stressors. By integrating experimental, field-based, and omics approaches, we seek to elucidate how these photoautotrophic organisms maintain homeostasis, optimize photosynthesis, and modulate antioxidant and metabolic pathways under dynamic environmental conditions.

Particular attention is given to:

• Photophysiological responses (e.g., chlorophyll fluorescence, non-photochemical quenching, pigment modulation, and photosynthetic efficiency under stress).
• Metabolic and biochemical adjustments, including the synthesis of secondary metabolites, osmolytes, and antioxidants as protective strategies.
• Molecular and transcriptomic regulation of stress-related genes linked to carbon assimilation, nutrient uptake, and oxidative balance.
• Ecological and evolutionary implications of stress tolerance, resilience, and acclimation in natural populations and cultured strains.

By gathering recent advances across laboratories, mesocosm, and in situ studies, this Special Issue will contribute to identifying key physiological indicators of stress and resilience, improving predictions of algal responses to climate change, and supporting sustainable management of aquatic primary producers.

Ultimately, this collection will provide a comprehensive framework to understand how environmental variability shapes the physiology and productivity of microalgae and macroalgae—from cellular to ecosystem scales—highlighting their role as sentinels and mitigators in a changing ocean.

Dr. Paula S.M. Celis-Plá
Guest Editor

Dr. Pablo Castro-Varela
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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-blind 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.