Plant Responses and Tolerance to Salinity Stress

Dear colleagues,

Thanks to climate change, the overexploitation of aquifers, and the use or reclaimed waters for agriculture, salinity is becoming one of the environmental factors that most limit crop yield. To solve this problem, several strategies have been explored. Such strategies range from the remediation of soils to the discovery of crops (cultivars) more tolerant to salinity stress.

Salinity has an osmotic and toxic effect on plants. Osmotic effects induce a physiological drought on plants because water is more retained in the soil, and this causes similar plant responses to those under water-limited conditions. On the other side, toxic effects are caused by the excess of sodium ions in the soil solution. The excess of sodium may displace potassium and other ions and cause an imbalance in the K⁺/Na⁺ ratio. This imbalance also caused for other essential ions may induce membrane and protein damage, which may even cause, in some extreme cases, plant death.

In this topic, all kinds of manuscripts dealing with plant response and tolerance mechanisms to cope with salinity stress are welcome. This includes field, greenhouse or growth chambers experiments with several approaches, from agronomic traits to molecular mechanisms, including also physiological and biochemical focus. Obviously, -omics approaches are extremely welcome.

Prof. Dr. Ricardo Aroca
Dr. Doan Trung Luu
Prof. Dr. Janusz J. Zwiazek
Prof. Dr. Gabriela Amodeo
Topic Editors