We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Perspective Chapter: Plant Abiotic Stress Factors – Current Challenges of Last Decades and Future Threats
AI summary Read the abstract
This review examines major abiotic stress factors affecting plants — including drought, waterlogging, extreme temperatures, heavy metals, and pollutants — with a focus on molecular-level effects and emerging threats from microplastics, nanoplastics, and nanoparticles. The authors evaluate current understanding of plant stress responses and highlight micro- and nanoplastics as novel stressors introduced by rapid industrialisation that plants have not encountered through evolutionary history.
All life forms, from the simplest to the most complicated, are inevitably exposed to altering environmental conditions in their natural habitats, gradually depending on their lifestyle. Unfavorable alterations drive these life forms either to avoidance or defense as a response. Most of the essential plant growth-promoting environmental factors can also turn out to be stress factors. Water as the most abundant molecule of all living cells can cause stress either in deficit as drought or in excess as waterlogging. Temperature is important for the maintenance of all biomolecules and metabolic reactions; hence, both low and high temperatures are deleterious stress factors. Even though the plants were exposed to various volcanic origin, heavy metals and pollutants and evolved molecular mechanisms during millions year of evolution, rapid urbanization, and industrial progress introduce brand new pollutants as micro- and nanoplastics as well as nanoparticles to plants like never before. This chapter defines and evaluates major environmental abiotic stress factors with an emphasis on the latest knowledge of molecular effects on plants. In addition, novel stress factors, such as nanoparticles and microplastics, are looked over as hot prospects for the future of plant abiotic stress areas.
More Papers Like This
Plastic in the Environment: A Modern Type of Abiotic Stress for Plant Physiology
AI summary Read the abstract
This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics act as a form of abiotic stress on plants, disrupting photosynthesis, triggering oxidative stress, and damaging proteins in crop species. Researchers found that these tiny plastic particles spread through farmlands, forests, and waterways worldwide and can enter the food chain once absorbed by plants. The study highlights the growing threat that plastic pollution poses to both agricultural productivity and environmental biodiversity.
Abiotic Stress Responses in Woody Plants: Morphological, Physiological, and Anatomical Features
AI summary Read the abstract
This review summarizes how various environmental stresses including flood, drought, temperature extremes, salt, heavy metals, and microplastics affect the growth and internal structure of trees and woody plants. The section on microplastics is one of several stress factors covered, noting that microplastics can disrupt plant water transport and root development. While primarily a plant biology review, the inclusion of microplastics as a recognized abiotic stressor for trees reflects growing awareness that plastic pollution affects terrestrial ecosystems and the plants within them.
Microplastics as emerging stressors in plants: biochemical and metabolic responses
AI summary Read the abstract
This review examines how microplastics act as environmental stressors in plants, disrupting biochemical and metabolic processes including photosynthesis, antioxidant defenses, and nutrient uptake, with effects varying by polymer type, particle size, and concentration.
Unveiling the mechanism of micro-and-nano plastic phytotoxicity on terrestrial plants: A comprehensive review of omics approaches.
AI summary Read the abstract
This comprehensive review examined how micro-and-nano plastics (MNPs) in terrestrial soils damage plant health by inhibiting water and nutrient uptake, reducing seed germination, impairing photosynthesis, and inducing oxidative stress. The review identified key knowledge gaps in understanding MNP phytotoxicity mechanisms and their implications for food security.
Responses of Physiological, Morphological and Anatomical Traits to Abiotic Stress in Woody Plants
AI summary Read the abstract
This review examines how trees and woody plants respond to environmental stresses including drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, heavy metals, and microplastics. Microplastics in soil can disrupt water transport and nutrient uptake in trees, potentially affecting forest health and the broader ecosystem. The effects of combined stresses, such as microplastics plus drought, are not simply additive and need further study.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.