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Climate Change and Plant Organisms: From Molecules to Ecosystems

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 March 2024 | Viewed by 2834

Special Issue Editor

Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy
Interests: essential oils; bioactive phytochemicals; ethnopharmacology; antimicrobial resistance; one health; food security
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

In the biosphere, plant organisms populate areas with specific climatic conditions that enable them to grow, develop, and reproduce. Indeed, most plants require optimal ranges of temperature and humidity, as well as rainfall patterns, to complete their life cycles. However, the Earth’s climate is changing rapidly and dramatically due to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels for energy needs. One of the most important trends in climate changes is global warming, i.e., the progressive rise in the Earth’s average temperature since the pre-industrial era, leading to the warmer atmosphere and oceans, heat waves, stronger storms, severe flooding, melting glaciers and glacial retreat, rising sea level, thawing permafrost, and increasing evaporation, droughts, and desertification. These climate-induced changes, in turn, impact plants, altering their ecological niches and seasonal rhythms and causing ecosystem disturbance, shifting habitats, migrations, habitat loss, and extinction. In these terms, global warming affects the distribution of native and alien species, with latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in the geographical ranges of some species, thus exacerbating alien species invasion and loss of biodiversity and representing a global threat for plant health and food security.

Within this broad context, this Special Issue welcomes articles focusing on biochemical and molecular mechanisms involved in the plant response to global climate change, with an emphasis on the impacts of these processes on plant health and food security. Therefore, we invite investigators to submit both original and review articles that explore all these aspects.

Prof. Dr. Marcello Iriti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • environmental pollution
  • global warming
  • extreme weather
  • tropospheric ozone
  • biodiversity
  • plant health
  • plant diseases
  • crop production
  • food security and safety
  • mycotoxins and mycotoxicoses

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2224 KiB  
Article
Drought and Subsequent Soil Flooding Affect the Growth and Metabolism of Savoy Cabbage
by Alessa Barber and Caroline Müller
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22(24), 13307; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms222413307 - 10 Dec 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2066
Abstract
An important factor of current climate change is water availability, with both droughts and flooding becoming more frequent. Effects of individual stresses on plant traits are well studied, although less is known about the impacts of sequences of different stresses. We used savoy [...] Read more.
An important factor of current climate change is water availability, with both droughts and flooding becoming more frequent. Effects of individual stresses on plant traits are well studied, although less is known about the impacts of sequences of different stresses. We used savoy cabbage to study the consequences of control conditions (well-watered) versus continuous drought versus drought followed by soil flooding and a potential recovery phase on shoot growth and leaf metabolism. Under continuous drought, plants produced less than half of the shoot biomass compared to controls, but had a >20% higher water use efficiency. In the soil flooding treatment, plants exhibited the poorest growth performance, particularly after the “recovery” phase. The carbon-to-nitrogen ratio was at least twice as high, whereas amino acid concentrations were lowest in leaves of controls compared to stressed plants. Some glucosinolates, characteristic metabolites of Brassicales, showed lower concentrations, especially in plants of the flooding treatment. Stress-specific investment into different amino acids, many of them acting as osmolytes, as well as glucosinolates, indicate that these metabolites play distinct roles in the responses of plants to different water availability conditions. To reduce losses in crop production, we need to understand plant responses to dynamic climate change scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Change and Plant Organisms: From Molecules to Ecosystems)
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