Abstract
A significant decline in the content of water in soils provokes a water deficit at the plant level. In plant physiology, water deficit can be defined as the water content of a tissue or cell below the highest water content under the optimum hydrated state. The basis of the fundamental mechanism involved in stress tolerance, although intensively explored, is still matter of debate. Cell growth is the physiological process first affected as cell water content decreases when plants encounter mild water-deficit levels, followed by an inhibition of cell wall and protein biosynthesis. Although stomatal conductance and photosynthesis are affected in more intense water-deficit stages, most research efforts have focused on the study of these processes. In legume plants grown under symbiotic conditions, one of the primary effects of water deficit is a decline in the rates of symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF). The causes of this inhibition, which occurs even before a measurable decline in the rates of photosynthesis, have been explored in detail in the last decades, although the molecular mechanism involved are yet not fully understood. In the present chapter, we summarize our current understanding of the factors involved in the regulation of SNF in different legume species, including crops such as soybean (Glycine max), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), and pea (Pisum sativum) but also model legumes like Medicago truncatula. Finally, an overview of the available resources and applications of molecular system-based approaches for understanding the complex responses of legumes to drought stress is provided.
Keywords
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Acknowledgements
This work has been partially funded by the Spanish National Research and Development Programs (AGL2011-23738, AGL2011-30386-C02-01, Juan de la Cierva) and Basque Government program (IT526-10).
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González, E.M., Larrainzar, E., Marino, D., Wienkoop, S., Gil-Quintana, E., Arrese-Igor, C. (2015). Physiological Responses of N2-Fixing Legumes to Water Limitation. In: Sulieman, S., Tran, LS. (eds) Legume Nitrogen Fixation in a Changing Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06212-9_2
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