Physiological Responses and Resilience of Plants to Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change has presently appeared as an unequivocal but unstoppable event, and it poses severe threat for survival of biosphere on this earth. Climate change actually results in large changes in environmental conditions like rainfall pattern, average temperature, heat waves, global change of CO2 or ozone levels, fluctuations in sea levels in addition to surge in new weed flora and insect pests or pathogens. It is believed that climate change is the main cause of various abiotic and biotic stresses that have been badly affecting the agricultural production. Further, climate change predictions indicate that a gradual increase in average atmospheric temperature or frequent incidence of environmental extremes would have a negative impact on physiological and biochemical functioning. Thus, climate has raised global apprehension in respect of lowering crop productivity and food security. As such understanding the tolerance mechanisms of plants has come up with great attention and concern among the researchers working on the development of crop resilience towards climate-smart agriculture and thereby food security under climate change scenario. Indeed, plants can alleviate stress injuries or damages through the aid of various strategies like avoidance or by adopting several inherent mechanisms towards resilience. With this background, this chapter aims to summarize the climate change-induced limiting factors for plant growth and plant responses to such changes. Also, various adaptations or tolerance mechanisms of plants to environmental extremes have been discussed. This contextual information is critical for agricultural sustainability and food security since an improved knowledge would aid in improving plants’ resilience to climate change through the application of modern breeding methodologies and biotechnological or genetic engineering tools.