Genes For Plant Abiotic Stress

Abiotic stresses caused by drought, salinity, toxic metals, temperature extremes, and nutrient poor soils are among the major constraints to plant growth and crop production worldwide. While crop breeding strategies to improve yields have progressed, a better understanding of the genetic and biological mechanisms underpinning stress adaptation is needed. Genes For Plant Abiotic Stress presents the latest research on recently examined genes and alleles and guides discussion of the genetic and physiological determinants that will be important for crop improvement in the future.

Matthew A. Jenks is Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at the Center for Plant Environmental Stress Physiology at Purdue University.
Andrew J. Wood is Professor of Stress Physiology and Molecular Biology in the Department of Plant Biology at Southern Illinois University.

Section 1. Genetic Determinants of Plant Adaptation Under Water Stress.
Chapter 1: Genetic determinants of stomatal function (Song Li and Sarah M. Assmann).
Chapter 2: Pathways and genetic determinants for cell wall-based osmotic stress tolerance in the Arabidopsis thaliana root system (Hisashi Koiwa).
Chapter 3: Transcription and signaling factors in the drought response regulatory network (Matthew Geisler).
Section 2. Genes for Crop Adaptation to Poor Soil.
Chapter 4: Genetic determinants of salinity tolerance in crop plants (Darren Plett, Bettina Berger and Mark Tester).
Chapter 5: Unraveling the mechanisms underlying aluminum dependent root growth inhibition (Paul B. Larsen).
Chapter 6: Genetic Determinants of Phosphate Use Efficiency in Crops (Fulgencio Alatorre-Cobos, Damar López-Arredondo and Luis Herrera-Estrella).
Chapter 7: Genes for Use in Improving Nitrate Use Efficiency in Crops (David A. Lightfoot).
Section 3. Genes for Plant Tolerance to Temperature Extremes.
Chapter 8: Genes and Gene Regulation for Low Temperature Tolerance (Mantas Survila, Pekka Heino and E. Tapio Palva).
Chapter 9: Genetic Approaches toward Improving Heat Tolerance in Plants (Mamatha Hanumappa and Henry T. Nguyen).
Section 4. Integrating Plant Abiotic Stress Responses.
Chapter 10: Genetic networks underlying plant abiotic stress responses (Arjun Krishnan, Madana M.R. Ambavaram, Amal Harb, Utlwang Batlang, Peter E. Wittich, and Andy Pereira).
Chapter 11: Discovering genes for abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants (Michael Popelka, Mitchell Tuinstra and Clifford F. Weil).