Impacts of Climate Change on Quality Attributes and Nutritional Value of Fruits and Vegetables

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, with several implications for both human life and the environment. Extreme environments present various stressors for plants, including extreme levels of radiation, water availability (drought, floods, and submersion), salinity, temperatures (heat, cold, freezing), chemical factors (metals and pH), and combinations of these factors. Climate change affects abiotic stress and results in the production of ROS in susceptible plants. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are crucial factors that play an important role in plants as they contribute to the growth, development, and metabolic activity pathways; they act as an alarm mechanism, triggering cellular responses to harmful stimuli as well. However, excess ROS cause oxidative stress-related damage and oxidize organic substances, leading to cellular malfunctions.

Agriculture is one of the sectors most affected by climate change, and it is crucial for the global economy and food security. Fruit and vegetable crops, which play a key role in the global food system, can be deeply affected by climate fluctuations, with serious consequences for plants. This, in turn, alters ecosystems worldwide, including agricultural production systems, and challenges researchers to design adaptation strategies.

This Special Issue aims to explore new insights into the understanding of these effects under different conditions, such as the effects of sustainable, low-input, and climate change-stressed environments on the yield, quality, and nutritional value of fruit and vegetable products. Resilience mechanisms (adaptability and resistance) induced during pre- and post-harvest handling will also be considered. Any paper dealing with new insights and future directions of fruit and vegetable acclimation to climate change will be considered.

Dr. Georgia Ouzounidou
Dr. Anastasia E. Giannakoula
Dr. Ilias Avdikos
Guest Editors

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• abiotic and biotic stress
• fruit and leafy vegetable quality
• nutritional value
• secondary metabolites
• plant stress physiology
• plant structure and function
• oxidative stress
• reactive oxygen species
• antioxidant system
• omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.)