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Understanding and Exploiting the Impact of Drought Stress on Plant Physiology

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Abiotic Stress Responses in Plants

Abstract

Despite the enormous volume of literature relating to plant responses to drought, there is still much work to be done to fully unravel the impact of a range of possibly interacting processes on plant physiology during drought. This review highlights some of the key processes. Some aspects of plant physiological response to drought can actually be beneficial in agronomy, if exploited correctly. It is also clear that substantial genetic variation in response to drought exists within many species. Exploiting such variation in conventional breeding has led to the release of drought-tolerant varieties. Increasing demand for food and other plant-based products coupled with increasing frequency and distribution of drought means that more rapid development of suitable varieties is now required. Understanding the genetic basis of drought tolerance is therefore essential, and the explosion in genomic data for a wide range of plant species is currently being harnessed in enhancing genetic improvement programmes.

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Abbreviations

A:

Assimilation rate

ABA:

Abscisic acid

AQP:

Aquaporin

APX:

Ascorbate peroxidase

AsA:

Ascorbic acid

CAT:

Catalase

δ13C:

Carbon isotope composition

DHA:

Dehydroascorbate

DHAR:

Dehydroascorbate reductase

E:

Evapotranspiration rate

EST:

Expressed sequence tag

GPX:

Glutathione peroxidase

GR:

Glutathione reductase

g s :

Stomatal conductance

GSH:

Glutathione

MDA:

Monohydroascorbate

MDAR:

Monohydroascorbate reductase

MTX:

Methotrexate

p a :

Partial pressure of CO2 in the air

PEG:

Polyethylene glycol

p i :

Intercellular partial pressure of CO2

PIP:

Plasma membrane intrinsic protein

PLD:

Phospholipase D

POD:

Guaicol peroxidase

PRI:

Photochemical reflectance index

PSI:

Photosystem I

PSII:

Photosystem II

QTL:

Quantitative trait loci

RFLP:

Restriction fragment length polymor­phism

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

SOD:

Superoxide dismutase

TIP:

Tonoplast intrinsic protein

WUE:

Water use efficiency

WUE i :

Instantaneous water use efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

The author is funded by Marie Curie IEF grant 252196, “IMaging of Plant Responses to Environmental StresS” (IMPRESS). Advice from Nada Šurbanovski and Phil Dix on the sections on aquaporins and reactive oxygen species, respectively, is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Biology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland

    Olga M. Grant

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Correspondence to Olga M. Grant .

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  1. , Botany, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, 190008, India

    Parvaiz Ahmad

  2. , Department of Plant Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 500046, India

    M.N.V. Prasad

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Grant, O.M. (2012). Understanding and Exploiting the Impact of Drought Stress on Plant Physiology. In: Ahmad, P., Prasad, M. (eds) Abiotic Stress Responses in Plants. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0634-1_5

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