Environmental Conditions In Plants Research Articles

IOT Based Smart Plant Monitoring System

Abstract: The IoT-based Smart Plant Monitoring System represents a transformative approach to modern agriculture by leveraging the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance the monitoring and management of plants in agricultural settings. This system integrates advanced sensor technologies, wireless communication, and data analytics to provide real-time insights into the health and environmental conditions of plants, thereby optimizing resource utilization and improving overall crop yield. The key components of the proposed system include a network of sensors strategically placed within the agricultural field to capture vital data related to soil moisture, temperature, humidity, light intensity, and nutrient levels. These sensors are connected through IoT-enabled devices, forming a cohesive network that continuously collects and transmits data to a centralized cloud-based platform. The cloud platform acts as a repository for the acquired data, where advanced analytics algorithms process the information in real-time

Dynamics of mRNA fate during light stress and recovery: from transcription to stability and translation.

Transcript stability is an important determinant of its abundance and, consequently, translational output. Transcript destabilisation can be rapid and is well suited for modulating the cellular response. However, it is unclear the extent to which RNA stability is altered under changing environmental conditions in plants. We previously hypothesised that recovery-induced transcript destabilisation facilitated a phenomenon of rapid recovery gene downregulation (RRGD) in Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) following light stress, based on mathematical calculations to account for ongoing transcription. Here, we test this hypothesis and investigate processes regulating transcript abundance and fate by quantifying changes in transcription, stability and translation before, during and after light stress. We adapt syringe infiltration to apply a transcriptional inhibitor to soil-grown plants in combination with stress treatments. Compared with measurements in juvenile plants and cell culture, we find reduced stability across a range of transcripts encoding proteins involved in RNA binding and processing. We also observe light-induced destabilisation of transcripts, followed by their stabilisation during recovery. We propose that this destabilisation facilitates RRGD, possibly in combination with transcriptional shut-off that was confirmed for HSP101, ROF1 and GOLS1. We also show that translation remains highly dynamic over the course of light stress and recovery, with a bias towards transcript-specific increases in ribosome association, independent of changes in total transcript abundance, after 30 min of light stress. Taken together, we provide evidence for the combinatorial regulation of transcription and stability that occurs to coordinate translation during light stress and recovery in Arabidopsis.

Genome-Wide Characterization of Calmodulin and Calmodulin-like Protein Gene Families in Paulownia fortunei and Identification of Their Potential Involvement in Paulownia Witches' Broom.

As significant Ca2+ sensors, calmodulin (CaM) and calmodulin-like proteins (CML), have been associated with a variety of environmental conditions in plants. However, whether CaMs/CMLs are related to the stress of phytoplasma infection has not been reported in Paulownia fortunei. In the current study, 5 PfCaMs and 58 PfCMLs were detected through a genome-wide investigation. The number of EF-hand motifs in all PfCaMs/CMLs varied. Bioinformatics analyses, including protein characteristics, conserved domain, gene structure, cis-elements, evolutionary relationship, collinearity, chromosomal location, post-translation modification site, subcellular localization and expression pattern analyses, represented the conservation and divergence of PfCaMs/CMLs. Furthermore, some PfCaMs/CMLs might be involved in plants' reaction to phytoplasma infection and exogenous calcium therapy, indicating these genes may play a role in abiotic as well as biotic stress responses. In addition, subcellular localization analysis showed that PfCML10 was located in the cell membrane and nucleus. In summary, these findings establish a stronger platform for their subsequent functional investigation in trees and further characterize their roles in Paulownia witches' broom (PaWB) occurrence.

The roles of strigolactones: Mineral compounds, indole-3 acetic acid and GA3 content in grapevine on drought stress

Plants have an extremely important place in the life of living creatures and in the ecological cycle. First of all, they undertake a complex phenomenon such as photosynthesis and perform critical tasks such as being raw material for different industrial branches especially for human and animal nutrition, preventing erosion, contributing to the soil in terms of organic matter, and assuring temperature control. It is also known that the environmental conditions of plants, which have such a significant place in our lives are changing day by day and the plants are faced with a vast number of adverse factors. Plants are affected by these factors of biotic or abiotic origin, which are not suitable for them, and as a consequence, they get stressed. Drought is the leading one of these stress factors. It is clearly acknowledged that endogenous hormones play a major role in the expression of plants as sensitive or tolerant as a result of responses to different types of stresses. It is known that some other substances such as jasmonates, brassinosteroids, salicylic acid and nitric oxide have been included in the endogenous hormones, which were examined under five basic groups until recently, namely auxin, gibberellin, cytokinin, abscisic acid and ethylene. One of these hormones derived from carotenoids is strigolactones (SL). Recent studies demonstrate that this substance produced in plant roots is also at the forefront in terms of stress tolerance. In this study, the effect of SL applications on drought resistance was investigated in Kober 5 BB and 110 R American grapevine rootstocks with different drought tolerance. Rootstocks were treated with 5 and 10 µM SL and exposed to drought stress. In order to measure the effects of SLs on stress, some physical (shoot length, shoot weight, average number of leaves per shoot) and biochemical (mineral substance and endogenous hormones) analysis were carried out. In the study, it was determined that SLs are a sort of hormone that has positive effects in terms of plant growth and development, promotes plant mineral nutrition, and that there is a positive relationship between the synthesis of the endogenous hormones IAA and GA3. According to the results obtained, it is comprehended that SLs can be used as growth regulators to alleviate drought stress.

SNF1-related protein kinase 1: the many-faced signaling hub regulating developmental plasticity in plants.

The Snf1-related protein kinase 1 (SnRK1) is the plant homolog of the heterotrimeric AMP-activated protein kinase/sucrose non-fermenting 1 (AMPK/Snf1), which works as a major regulator of growth under nutrient-limiting conditions in eukaryotes. Along with its conserved role as a master regulator of sugar starvation responses, SnRK1 is involved in controlling the developmental plasticity and resilience under diverse environmental conditions in plants. In this review, through mining and analyzing the interactome and phosphoproteome data of SnRK1, we are highlighting its role in fundamental cellular processes such as gene regulation, protein synthesis, primary metabolism, protein trafficking, nutrient homeostasis, and autophagy. Along with the well-characterized molecular interaction in SnRK1 signaling, our analysis highlights several unchartered regions of SnRK1 signaling in plants such as its possible communication with chromatin remodelers, histone modifiers, and inositol phosphate signaling. We also discuss potential reciprocal interactions of SnRK1 signaling with other signaling pathways and cellular processes, which could be involved in maintaining flexibility and homeostasis under different environmental conditions. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive overview of the SnRK1 signaling network in plants and suggests many novel directions for future research.

Reactive oxygen species, auxin and nitric oxide in metal-stressed roots: toxicity or defence.

The presented review is a summary on the current knowledge about metal induced stress response in plants, focusing on the roles of reactive oxygen species, auxin and nitric oxide in roots. The article focuses mainly on the difference between defence and toxicity symptoms of roots during metal-induced stress. Nowadays, pollution of soils by heavy metals is a rapidly growing issue, which affects agriculture and human health. In order to deal with these problems, we must first understand the basic mechanisms and responses to environmental conditions in plants growing under such conditions. Studies so far show somewhat conflicting data, interpreting the same stress responses as both symptoms of defence and toxicity. Therefore, the aim of this review is to give a report about current knowledge of heavy metal-induced stress research, and also to differentiate between toxicity and defence, and outline the challenges of research, focusing on reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, auxin, and the interplay among them. There are still remaining questions on how reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, as well as auxin, can activate either symptoms of toxicity or defence, and adaptation responses.

The microtubule cytoskeleton acts as a sensor for stress response signaling in plants.

Stress tolerance pathways are protective mechanisms that have evolved to protect plant growth and increase production under various environmental stress conditions. Enhancing stress tolerance in crop plants has become an area of intense study with aims of increasing crop production and enhancing economic benefits. A growing number of studies suggest that in addition to playing vital roles in mechanical architecture and cell division, microtubules are also involved the adaptation to severe environmental conditions in plants. However, the mechanisms that integrate microtubule regulation, cellular metabolism and cell signaling in plant stress responses remain unclear. Recent studies suggest that microtubules act as sensors for different abiotic stresses and maintain mechanical stability by forming bundles. Characterizing the diverse roles of plant microtubules is vital to furthering our understanding of stress tolerance in plants.

Ectopic Expression of OsDREB1G, a Member of the OsDREB1 Subfamily, Confers Cold Stress Tolerance in Rice.

Plants adapt to adverse environmental conditions through physiological responses, such as induction of the abscisic acid signaling pathway, stomatal regulation, and root elongation. Altered gene expression is a major molecular response to adverse environmental conditions in plants. Several transcription factors function as master switches to induce the expression of stress-tolerance genes. To find out a master regulator for the cold stress tolerance in rice, we focused on functionally identifying DREB subfamily which plays important roles in cold stress tolerance of plants. Here, we characterized OsDREB1G (LOC_Os02g45450), a functionally unidentified member of the DREB1 subgroup. OsDREB1G is specifically induced under cold stress conditions among several abiotic stresses examined. This gene is dominantly expressed in leaf sheath, blade, node, and root. Transgenic rice overexpressing this gene exhibited strong cold tolerance and growth retardation, like transgenic rice overexpressing other OsDREB1 genes. However, unlike these rice lines, transgenic rice overexpressing OsDREB1G did not exhibit significant increases in drought or salt tolerance. Cold-responsive genes were highly induced in transgenic rice overexpressing DREB1G compared to wild type. In addition, OsDREB1G overexpression directly induced the expression of a reporter gene fused to the promoters of cold-induced genes in rice protoplasts. Therefore, OsDREB1G is a typical CBF/DREB1 transcription factor that specifically functions in the cold stress response. Therefore, OsDREB1G could be useful for developing transgenic rice with enhanced cold-stress tolerance.

An End-to-End-Based Low Dimensional Binary Embedding for Chrysanthemum Phenotypic Petal Similarity Evaluation

Plant phenotyping is widely used to identify the genotype differences and the environmental conditions of plants. These pieces of information can be gathered by various sensors conveniently and easily. The similarity evaluation of phenotypic data is essential for category classifications and stress sensitivity analysis of plants. Chrysanthemum is a flower with great varieties and petal types. The similarity evaluation of chrysanthemum flowers plays a key role in the phenotypic research. For improving the performance and effectiveness of phenotypic similarity evaluation of high-throughput chrysanthemum flower images, this paper proposes an end-to-end based low dimensional binary embedding framework by using deep learning and hash encoding approaches. Within this framework, compact binary codes are learned by deep convolutional neural networks. Firstly, features of chrysanthemum images are extracted by deep neural networks, then a binary layer is embedded for converting the features into lower dimensional bit codes. Finally, the phenotypic similarity of the chrysanthemum flower is evaluated in Hamming space with the binary codes. Extensive experiments are conducted and the results show that the performance and effectiveness of similarity evaluations are improved greatly. In summary, our research provides an end-to-end pipeline for the similarity evaluation of chrysanthemum petal phenotypes, and the proposed method is practically applicable to the high-throughput similarity evaluation. The proposed method can be used as a foundation for the in-depth research on chrysanthemum flower petals as well.

The urban heat island and the features of the flora in the Lublin City area, SE Poland

Various forms of human activity in large cities contribute to the creation of a specific climate and new environmental conditions for plants. One of the most important results is the so-called atmospheric urban heat island (UHI). The aim of this study was to compare the thermal conditions in the Lublin City center with those of suburban areas, and so confirm the existence of the UHI and then analyze the influence of thermal conditions on features of the flora. The analysis of the air temperatures was based on data from 2000 to 2014 provided by meteorological stations in the Lublin City center and its nearest surroundings. Floristic data were collected during field studies between 2012–2014 and included species richness and frequency, life forms, and synecological groups of the flora and its elements. The thermal requirements of species were defined on the basis of ecological indicator values (EIVs). Our research confirmed the presence of the UHI in the Lublin City center. Over the study period, the mean temperature in the city center was by 0.87°C higher than that in the suburban areas. The largest differences in mean annual air temperature between the city center and the suburbs were recorded in 2007 and 2011–2013. In total, 552 species were recorded, including six life-form and synecological groups, 246 thermophilous and 436 heliophilous species. The species richness, proportion of therophytes, alien, thermo- and heliophilous species decreased with distance from the city center. The thermal conditions expressed by the EIV L and T ranged from L = 4.5, T = 3.8 in the city center, to L = 3.1, T = 3.4 in the suburbs. An ordination analysis facilitated determination of the relationships between characteristics of the flora, the EIV values, and land use classes. An increasing level of anthropopressure was found to be positively correlated with thermal conditions and the flora traits.

(Invited) A Stretchable Leaf Sensor for Plant Monitoring

Ecological deterioration, increasing population, and nature resource shortage post huge pressure on the conventional agriculture mode. More advanced modes based on precision agriculture apply geospatial techniques and sensors (e.g., geographic information systems, remote sensing, GPS) to obtain quantified field and environmental data, and hold the promise to improve efficiency of resource distribution and production yield. Typical approaches in precision agriculture rely on aerial sensing information or non-contact measurement. However, such measurement techniques are difficult to provide continuous information, making prompt response to disastrous environmental conditions and precision guidance of agricultural activities extremely difficult. Stretchable and flexible electronic sensors that have been applied to human skin for monitoring the health conditions of the wearers can be potentially applied to the surface of plants, and grow with the plants over their entire life spans. Here, we present a highly stretchable, ultrathin sensor that can conformably attached on leaf and monitor both the physiological and environmental conditions of plants (Figure 1). The sensor possesses excellent stretchability that is compatible to the growth of the leaf with minimized influence to plant biology. The sensor contains stacked layers of polymeric and metallic meshes and four sensing elements to measure hydration, stain, temperature, and light intensity on leaf, respectively (Figure 2). The serpentine interconnects within the sensor is made of two levels of stretchable structures, allowing extremely large stretchability to adapt to the growth of leaf. The hydration sensing element contains a pair of electrodes in the form of an inner circular disk (200 μm in radius) and an outer circular annulus (400 μm in inner radius and 600 mm in outer radius). The strain sensing element consists of two perpendicular SWCNTs strips (500×30 μm2) in response to strain changes both in vertical and horizontal directions. The temperature sensor exploits ultrathin copper film (thickness ~50nm) that designed to serpentine shape, in order to increase the resistance compared to the serpentine interconnections. In addition, a phototransistor is used to measure the ambient light intensity. The sensor can be connected with a wireless measurement circuits to conduct remote data transmission. The circuit, which is 3×3×2 cm2 in its dimension, consists of 4 stacked PCB layers, and uses Zigbee protocol to enable longer data transmission range (Figure 3). The power of the circuit is both supplied by a polymer rechargeable battery and solar cells to accommodate the continuous requirement of data monitoring and transmission on field. We have conducted preliminary experiments of this sensor under controlled environment. The impedance measurement results obtained by injecting a piece of filter paper with different amount of water demonstrate that the sensor can response to a hydration changes from wet to dry, with more than 11% changes in its impedance at a frequency of 70 kHz (Figure 4). In addition, the temperature sensing element has been calibrated on a hot plate with varied temperature from 40 to 100 °C. The sensing element exhibits linear resistance changes from 4100 to 4250 Ω (Figure 5). Furthermore, the phototransistor can response to light intensity changes from 0 to 100000 lux (figure 6), which is equivalent to the light intensity during the night and the day. More experiments related to other sensing elements as well as the wireless circuit will be reported during the meeting. In conclusion, the stretchable leaf sensor offers high stretchability to match the mechanical properties of leaf. The leaf sensor can be conformably attached on the surface of leaf and accommodate to the growth of leaf. The experimental results have demonstrated that the sensor can be used to monitor the biophysiological and environmental conditions on leaf to facilitate precision agriculture. Figure 1

Evolution of plant δ(1)-pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductases from phylogenetic and structural perspectives.

Proline plays a crucial role in cell growth and stress responses, and its accumulation is essential for the tolerance of adverse environmental conditions in plants. Two routes are used to biosynthesize proline in plants. The main route uses glutamate as a precursor, while in the other route proline is derived from ornithine. The terminal step of both pathways, the conversion of δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C) to L-proline, is catalyzed by P5C reductase (P5CR) using NADH or NADPH as a cofactor. Since P5CRs are important housekeeping enzymes, they are conserved across all domains of life and appear to be relatively unaffected throughout evolution. However, global analysis of these enzymes unveiled significant functional diversity in the preference for cofactors (NADPH vs. NADH), variation in metal dependence and the differences in the oligomeric state. In our study we investigated evolutionary patterns through phylogenetic and structural analysis of P5CR representatives from all kingdoms of life, with emphasis on the plant species. We also attempted to correlate local sequence/structure variation among the functionally and structurally characterized members of the family.

Abscisic Acid Uridine Diphosphate Glucosyltransferases Play a Crucial Role in Abscisic Acid Homeostasis in Arabidopsis

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) is crucial for plant growth and adaptive responses to various stress conditions. Plants continuously adjust the ABA level to meet physiological needs, but how ABA homeostasis occurs is not fully understood. This study provides evidence that UGT71B6, an ABA uridine diphosphate glucosyltransferase (UGT), and its two closely related homologs, UGT71B7 and UGT71B8, play crucial roles in ABA homeostasis and in adaptation to dehydration, osmotic stress, and high-salinity stresses in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). UGT RNA interference plants that had low levels of these three UGT transcripts displayed hypersensitivity to exogenous ABA and high-salt conditions during germination and exhibited a defect in plant growth. However, the ectopic expression of UGT71B6 in the atbg1 (for β-glucosidase) mutant background aggravated the ABA-deficient phenotype of atbg1 mutant plants. In addition, modulation of the expression of the three UGTs affects the expression of CYP707A1 to CYP707A4, which encode ABA 8'-hydroxylases; four CYP707As were expressed at higher levels in the UGT RNA interference plants but at lower levels in the UGT71B6:GFP-overexpressing plants. Based on these data, this study proposes that UGT71B6 and its two homologs play a critical role in ABA homeostasis by converting active ABA to an inactive form (abscisic acid-glucose ester) depending on intrinsic cellular and environmental conditions in plants.

Histone acetyltransferase GCN5 interferes with the miRNA pathway in Arabidopsis

MicroRNAs (miRNA) that guide sequence-specific posttranscriptional gene silencing play an important role in gene expression required for both developmental processes and responses to environmental conditions in plants. However, little is known about the transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of miRNA expression. Histone acetylation plays an important role in chromatin remodeling and is required for gene activation. By analyzing the accumulation of subset of miRNAs and the corresponding primary miRNAs in mutants of Arabidopsis, we show that histone acetyltransferase GCN5 (General control non-repressed protein5) has a general repressive effect on miRNA production, while it is required for the expression of a subset of (e.g. stress-inducible) MIRNA genes. The general negative function of GCN5 in miRNA production is likely achieved through an indirect repression of the miRNA machinery genes such as DICER LIKE1 (DCL1), SERRATE (SE), HYPONASTIC LEAVES1 (HYL1) and ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1). Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays revealed that GCN5 targets to a subset of MIRNA genes and is required for acetylation of histone H3 lysine 14 at these loci. Moreover, inhibition of histone deacetylation by trichostatin A treatment or in histone deacetylase gene mutants impaired the accumulation of certain miRNAs. These data together suggest that Arabidopsis GCN5 interferes with the miRNA pathway at both the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels and histone acetylation/deacetylation is an epigenetic mechanism involved in the regulation of miRNA production.