Crops Diseases under Climate Change Context and Their Control

Dear Colleagues,

In the coming century, the climate is likely to become warmer and wetter during winter seasons and hotter and drier during summer seasons, resulting in higher average temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme events, increasing the threats to sustainable food security. Apart from having direct effects on plant productivity, climate changes can also influence productivity through indirect effects mediated by changes in pests and diseases. Plant diseases result from the compatible interaction of a susceptible host with a pathogen, and environmental conditions favorable to the pathogen. Consequently, any climatic alteration that increases host vulnerability to pathogens or results in less suitable environmental conditions will amplify both disease severity and incidence. Further, climate change may facilitate invasion by new nonnative pathogens, leading to new epidemics. Therefore, we need to develop new control strategies, other than chemical control, based on an in-depth understanding of the molecular and physiological mechanisms occurring in plants under unfavorable conditions. The present issue will present state-of-the-art research in plant sciences by addressing fundamental questions of functions and mechanisms involved when plants are subjected to abiotic or biotic stress and how these processes are affected/amplified in a climate change context. This Special Issue will be useful not only for students, teachers, and researchers but also for those interested in agriculture, plant physiology, plant pathology, plant-microbe interactions, environmental science, and agronomy. We invite researchers to submit regular research papers, reviews, communications and short notes that are intended to meet these specific issues or related issues. Studies based on field, potting or lab experiments that involve physiology, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics analysis are welcomed. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: biological control; gene regulation and genomic regulatory analysis; phytohormones signaling; metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, proteomic and metabolomics analysis; plant-microbe interactions; plant responses to abiotic stress; plant responses to biotic stress; signal transduction during the induction of acquired resistance (immunity) in plants; and sustainable agriculture.

Prof. Dr. Essaid Ait Barka
Prof. Dr. Rachid Lahlali
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-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.