Plant Biotic and Abiotic Stress Responses and Tolerance: Phytohormonal and Metabolic Insights

Dear Colleagues,

Biotic and abiotic stresses reduce crop yields and quality, resulting in substantial annual economic losses. Global climate change further intensifies the frequency and severity of various plant stresses, posing a significant risk to productivity and jeopardizing global food security.

Plants evolved with intricate stress responses and tolerance mechanisms. Phytohormones, diverse primary metabolic pathways (carbon, nitrogen, sulfur metabolism, etc.), secondary metabolites and osmolytes (e.g., phenolics, flavonoids and proline) play significant roles in this complex process. Understanding these mechanisms is critical for formulating different agricultural solutions to mitigate the adverse effects of various biotic and abiotic stresses and improve crop productivity and sustainability.

Agricultural practices lead to enhanced stress tolerance, and overall crop performance is a crucial focus for sustainable crop production. For example, biostimulants and emerging strategies have been evaluated in different cropping systems as stress mitigation tools. However, knowledge of biostimulants (microbial and non-microbial) mediated regulations for the phytohormone crosstalk, and plant primary and specialized metabolic pathways remains unclear.

This Special Issue is a unique opportunity to delve into the current and future perspectives on phytohormonal and metabolic insights of plant biotic and abiotic stress responses and tolerance. We welcome original articles, short communications, reviews and perspectives that explore recent advances in plant stress physiology. The focus is on potential new agricultural sustainable solutions that can enhance crop productivity and stress tolerance in both conventional and protected crop production systems.

Dr. Tabibul Islam
Dr. Md. Al Mamun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• biotic and abiotic stress
• phytohormones: primary metabolism
• secondary metabolites
• plant–pathogen interactions
• biostimulants
• beneficial microbes
• plant innate immunity
• omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.)