Preface

The field of plant stress biology has seen dramatic progress in the past two decades due to the development of new experimental techniques and the wide application of these innovative approaches to cultivated crops, not just a few model plant species. The recent advances in whole-genome sequencing, plant bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are used with increasing speed to understand plants responses and improve crop tolerance to various abiotic stress factors such as heat, drought, soil salinity, and soil acidity. These scientific actions aimed at addressing the effects of abiotic stresses on crop productivity have been motivated by the need to feed the growing human population, and the need to mitigate the effects of environment pollution resulting from human activities and climate change.

Instead of focusing on one particular problem or plant, our editorial team of four international experts in plant biology put together this book, collecting 18 chapters written by scientists specialized in various areas of plant stress biology, to give the readers a broad view of the modern problems, technologies, and plant systems used in the field. As a result, the book covers salinity, drought, heat, and cold stresses, emphasizing on the tolerance to combinations of different stresses and highlighting the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms underlying crops’ reactions to abiotic stresses and paving the way for improving stress tolerance. The chapters overview many novel approaches from system biology to phenomics, genomics, metabolomics, transgenesis, and genome editing, examining their contributions to the field and providing perspectives for improving stress tolerance in a range of important crops including cereals, cotton, and potato.

The subjects and themes of the book are carefully indexed, helping the readers to easily find the information of interest. We believe this book will be interesting and useful not only for the scientists practicing in the related fields but also for crop breeders, biology students, and the broader audience interested in advanced science and technologies.

Our sincere thanks go to all the authors for their effort and time in preparing the chapters for their valuable contributions.