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The Unseen Half: Roles of Roots Under Stress Along the...
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The Unseen Half: Roles of Roots Under Stress Along the Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Continuum

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant–Soil Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 1902

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Shuang-Xi Zhou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Government of Western Australia, Kensington, Australia
Interests: automation; canopy management; crop physiology; climate resilience; root system; production system
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Roots are the plants primary exchange interface with the soil, determining access to moisture and nutrients. This hidden half contains a complex range of sensing and signaling mechanisms that interact with the shoot, facilitating both active and passive transport of water and mineral elements. Predicting the long-term consequence of environmental changes on plant species, communities and eco- and agri-systems requires improved understanding of root systems and their coordination with the canopy systems. Root observation tools and techniques have been improving over the past decades (e.g., phenotyping), facilitating our understandings on Root physiology, trait, function, property and/or behavior under various stresses. In this Research Topic, we welcome submissions of all article types published by MDPI Plants, including original research and reviews that dissect the root-related plant responses to variable stresses. We encourage contributions involving experiments conducted both in the field and under controlled environments, as well as the work involving modeling, experiment-model integration, and meta-analyses. Both fundamental and applied research are welcome, including studies on cultivated crops and agricultural systems. Quantitative studies that report responses of roots to biotic and/or abiotic stresses will be considered relevant if they advance our physiological understanding of these responses. Articles proposing novel practices to mitigate the negative effects of stress on plants are also within scope, provided they are supported by a hypothesized and at least partially demonstrated mechanism. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Root-soil-canopy interaction and management
  • Root physiology, trait, function, property and/or behavior under stresses
  • Interactions between above- and below-ground trait responses and coordinated mechanisms.
  • Root and canopy signaling and/or trade-offs in the context of source-sink relationships and resource acquisition and investment strategies
  • Root resilience to maintain or enhance plant functions under stress.
  • Interactions among multiple biotic or abiotic stresses, or between biotic and biotic stresses, along the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.
  • Experiment and modelling integration

Dr. Shuang-Xi Zhou
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 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-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.

Keywords

  • root physiology
  • root trait
  • root function
  • root behavior
  • climate change
  • soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
  • soil management
  • stress resilience
  • stress tolerance
  • stress acclimation
  • plant adaptation

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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18 pages, 2328 KB  
Article
Morphological Traits Shape Foraging Scale but Not Precision: Divergent Responses of Four Tree Species to Water and Nutrient Heterogeneity
by Liuduan Wei, Tianxin Dong, Liufeng Lan, Jian Lin, Xianwen Li, Miao Yu and Chengyang Xu
Plants 2026, 15(7), 998; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15070998 - 24 Mar 2026
Viewed by 338
Abstract
Soil nutrients and water are often distributed heterogeneously in space, yet how plant roots forage in response to such heterogeneity and how their strategies relate to functional traits remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted an indoor pot experiment manipulating water and nutrient supply [...] Read more.
Soil nutrients and water are often distributed heterogeneously in space, yet how plant roots forage in response to such heterogeneity and how their strategies relate to functional traits remain poorly understood. Here, we conducted an indoor pot experiment manipulating water and nutrient supply in both homogeneous and heterogeneous patch patterns using seedlings of four tree species, focusing on root functional traits and foraging strategies. The results indicate that root foraging behavior exhibits both resource specificity and species specificity: roots tend to proliferate toward nutrient-rich and low-water patches as an adaptive strategy. Although no strict dichotomy was observed between high foraging scale (low precision) and low foraging scale (high precision) strategies under heterogeneous conditions, fine-rooted species (Acer truncatum and Koelreuteria paniculata) exhibited traits leaning toward “precise foraging”, whereas coarse-rooted species (Prunus davidiana and Quercus variabilis) tended toward a conservative “random walk” pattern, with no trade-off between root foraging scale and precision. Root morphological traits exerted significant nonlinear regulation on foraging scale: root biomass foraging scale (FSRB) correlated positively with root diameter (RD) but negatively with specific root length (SRL) and specific root area (SRA); root length foraging scale (FSRL) correlated positively with root length (RL), root tip number (RTN), SRL, and SRA. In contrast, root morphological traits could not explain the variation in foraging precision, suggesting that foraging precision constitutes another distinct dimension in root-trait space. In summary, this study provides key insights into the foraging strategies of plant roots in heterogeneous environments, expanding our understanding of the multidimensionality of root functional traits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Unseen Half: Roles of Roots Under Stress Along the Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Continuum)
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21 pages, 5890 KB  
Article
Investigation of Physiological Responses of Different Soybean Cultivars Under Drought Stress
by Yegyeong Bae, Amit Ghimire, Minju Lee, Minsu Jeong, Minju Kwon and Yoonha Kim
Plants 2026, 15(5), 714; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15050714 - 27 Feb 2026
Viewed by 652
Abstract
Soybeans with modified fatty acid compositions are widely used to improve oil quality and develop functional food products; however, physiological responses to drought stress during early growth stages remain insufficiently understood. This study compared shoot and root responses of three soybean cultivars with [...] Read more.
Soybeans with modified fatty acid compositions are widely used to improve oil quality and develop functional food products; however, physiological responses to drought stress during early growth stages remain insufficiently understood. This study compared shoot and root responses of three soybean cultivars with contrasting fatty acid profiles: Osoy (elevated linolenic acid; OS), PE529 (elevated oleic acid; PE), and Pungsannamul (PS) under drought stress conditions. Drought significantly reduced plant height, shoot biomass, and leaf area in all cultivars, although the magnitude of reduction differed among genotypes. PS exhibited the greatest decreases in plant height (39%), shoot dry weight (47%), and leaf area (78%) compared with well-watered conditions. In addition, PS showed relatively higher net carbon assimilation rate and stomatal conductance during the early phase of drought, but significantly lower values than OS and PE after 7–8 days of treatment, indicating a relatively higher sensitivity to drought stress. Root trait responses varied among cultivars. Total root length was largely maintained under drought conditions; however, all cultivars exhibited increased root distribution in deeper soil layers. Notably, PE showed a relatively higher proportion of roots at 40 cm depth. Whole-plant water use efficiency (wWUE) did not differ among cultivars under drought conditions; however, Pearson correlation analysis revealed strong associations between wWUE and root traits in PE, including total root length (r = 0.72), average root diameter (r = −0.77), and root volume (r = 0.65). Overall, PE exhibited relatively stable morphological and physiological responses under drought stress, suggesting a comparatively higher adaptive potential during early growth stages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Unseen Half: Roles of Roots Under Stress Along the Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Continuum)
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13 pages, 2146 KB  
Brief Report
Spatiotemporal Root-Trait Plasticity Underpins Almond Yield Stability and Enhanced Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency Under Prolonged Fertigation Reduction
by Shuangxi Zhou, Alexandra Lawlor, Rob R. Walker and Everard J. Edwards
Plants 2026, 15(3), 409; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15030409 - 29 Jan 2026
Viewed by 504
Abstract
The root system provides the interface between the plant and the soil that is responsible for water and nutrient uptake and transport. We hypothesized that almond trees in the commercial production environment could adjust their root acquisitive traits with distance vertically and horizontally [...] Read more.
The root system provides the interface between the plant and the soil that is responsible for water and nutrient uptake and transport. We hypothesized that almond trees in the commercial production environment could adjust their root acquisitive traits with distance vertically and horizontally from driplines as adaptive responses to within-orchard reductions in irrigation and nitrogen inputs. We compared the responses of root acquisitive traits under four years of treatments ranging from +W+N (15 ML ha−1 water and 300 kg ha−1 nitrogen per season) to −W−N (10.5 ML ha−1 water and 160 kg ha−1 nitrogen per season, with −W involving a 30% reduction in irrigation and −N involving a 46% reduction in nitrogen). Roots (<3 mm) were sampled through soil coring in the winters of 2017, 2018, and 2019. Root sampling was conducted along the vertical gradient and along the horizonal gradient (0 cm, 80 cm, and 240 cm from the dripline). Four years of treatments highlighted that the data variation was driven mainly by the difference between the +W and −W treatments (along PC1). Further, the difference between −W−N (combined resource reduction) and the other three treatments (+W+N, +W−N, and −W+N) contributed to the data variation (along PC2). Also, the temporal dynamics of treatment effects over 2017, 2018, and 2019 suggested a temporally strengthened +W−N effect to increase root biomass, average root diameter, specific root surface area (SRA), and specific root length (SRL) at deeper soil depths and at greater soil distances from driplines. These findings on the spatial and temporal plasticity of traits representing root resource acquisition capabilities highlighted the important role of root systems in maintaining crop productivity under reduced irrigation and nitrogen inputs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Unseen Half: Roles of Roots Under Stress Along the Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Continuum)
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