Dear Colleagues,

Environmental abiotic stresses, such as drought, waterlogging (or flooding), extreme temperatures (cold and heat), salinity, and mineral (metal and metalloid) toxicity extensively limit the worldwide utilization of arable land and negatively affect the growth, development, yield, and quality of crops and ther other plants. More importantly, these issues are becoming increasingly frequent and persistent due to global climate change and improper anthropogenic activities. To survive under thease abiotic stress conditions, plants have evolved complex and sophisticated mechanisms that enable them to respond and adapt to the changing envoronment. These mechanisms include stress sensing, signal transduction, the transcriptional regulation of stress-responsive target genes, the synthesis of stress-related molecules, and translation and post-translational protein modifications, which together assist plants to cope with stressful environments through biochemical and physiological manifestations.

In recent decades, intensive research has identified many of the factors that regulate abiotic stress responses and tolerance, but many aspects remain unresolved. The complete unravelling of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses to different forms of stress, as well as the identification of potential unknown stress-responsive pathways and genes, will contribute to an improved understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms in plant stress tolerance. More importantly, the discoveries of novel stress-responsive genes and regulatory pathways, analyses of expression patterns, and the elucidation of the function of genes during plant adaptations to abiotic stress will provide the basis and engineering targets for effective breeding strategies with the aim to enhance the abiotic stress tolerance of crop plants. In addition, other biotechnological approaches, such as colonization with arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungus and plant growth-promoting bacteria, have also demonstrated the great potential for improving abiotic stress tolerance in plants.

In this Special Issue, we intend to incorporate the recent research conducted on the adaptive responses and mechanisms of crops to abiotic stresses through a variety of physiological, biochemical, and molecular approaches. Authors are invited to submit original research, reviews/mini-reviews, methods, and opinion articles related to, but not exclusively limited to, the following topics:

• Physiological, biochemical, and molecular studies of plant responses to abiotic stresses;
• Responses of plants to abiotic stresses from gene to whole-plant levels;
• Identification of novel pathways and genes in modulating abiotic stress tolerance;
• Stress stressing, signal transduction, and downstream gene regulation in response to abiotic stresses;
• Revealing general and stress-specific mechanisms by a comparision of differenct stresses;
• Idientifaication and determination of the roles of stress-responsive genes, proteins, and transcription factors;
• Transcriptional regulation in response to abiotic stresses;
• Biotechnological approaches to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in plants.

Prof. Dr. Fanrong Zeng
Prof. Dr. Imran Haider Shamsi
Dr. Xin Huang
Guest Editors

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• drought
• waterlogging
• cold
• heat
• salinity
• heavy metals
• nutrient deficiency
• soil acidification

• Adaptive Response and Mechanism of Crops to Abiotic Stresses—2nd Edition in Sustainability (1 article)