Abstract
Drought and heat are major abiotic stresses that reduce crop productivity and weaken global food security, especially given the current and growing impacts of climate change and increases in the occurrence and severity of both stress factors. Plants have developed dynamic responses at the morphological, physiological and biochemical levels allowing them to escape and/or adapt to unfavorable environmental conditions. Nevertheless, even the mildest heat and drought stress negatively affects crop yield. Further, several independent studies have shown that increased temperature and drought can reduce crop yields by as much as 50%. Response to stress is complex and involves several factors including signaling, transcription factors, hormones, and secondary metabolites. The reproductive phase of development, leading to the grain production is shown to be more sensitive to heat stress in several crops. Advances coming from biotechnology including progress in genomics and information technology may mitigate the detrimental effects of heat and drought through the use of agronomic management practices and the development of crop varieties with increased productivity under stress. This review presents recent progress in key areas relevant to plant drought and heat tolerance. Furthermore, an overview and implications of physiological, biochemical and genetic aspects in the context of heat and drought are presented. Potential strategies to improve crop productivity are discussed.
Highlights
Drought and heat can reduce crop productivity and yields leading to lower income for farmers
We propose that despite the complexity of plant responses to heat and drought and the limited improvements so far achieved in mitigating the effects of these stresses, there are opportunities, highlighted in this review, to improve productivity of plants under these stresses
Saez et al (2008) identified SWI3B as one of the targets of an Abscisic acid (ABA)-related PP2C, HAB1. These observations suggest that ABA and/or abiotic stress signaling modifies gene expression profiles and developmental programs through the modification of epigenetic status to cope with the stresses (Hirayama and Shinozaki, 2010)
Summary
Reviewed by: Vicent Arbona, Jaume I University, Spain Alessia Perego, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. Plants have developed dynamic responses at the morphological, physiological and biochemical levels allowing them to escape and/or adapt to unfavorable environmental conditions. Even the mildest heat and drought stress negatively affects crop yield. Several independent studies have shown that increased temperature and drought can reduce crop yields by as much as 50%. The reproductive phase of development, leading to the grain production is shown to be more sensitive to heat stress in several crops. Advances coming from biotechnology including progress in genomics and information technology may mitigate the detrimental effects of heat and drought through the use of agronomic management practices and the development of crop varieties with increased productivity under stress. This review presents recent progress in key areas relevant to plant drought and heat tolerance.
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