ABIOTIC STRESS IN PLANTS – MECHANISMS AND ADAPTATIONS Edited by Arun Kumar Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations Edited by Arun Kumar Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Dragana Manestar Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Fribus Ekaterina, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published August, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations, Edited by Arun Kumar Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-394-1 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Abiotic Stresses 1 Chapter 1 Imaging of Chlorophyll a Fluorescence: A Tool to Study Abiotic Stress in Plants 3 Lucia Guidi and Elena Degl’Innocenti Chapter 2 Salinity Stress and Salt Tolerance 21 Petronia Carillo, Maria Grazia Annunziata, Giovanni Pontecorvo, Amodio Fuggi and Pasqualina Woodrow Chapter 3 Abiotic Stress in Harvested Fruits and Vegetables 39 Peter M.A. Toivonen and D. Mark Hodges Chapter 4 Towards Understanding Plant Response to Heavy Metal Stress 59 Zhao Yang and Chengcai Chu Chapter 5 Plant N Fluxes and Modulation by Nitrogen, Heat and Water Stresses: A Review Based on Comparison of Legumes and Non Legume Plants 79 Salon Christophe, Avice Jean-Christophe, Larmure Annabelle, Ourry Alain, Prudent Marion and Voisin Anne-Sophie Chapter 6 Biotechnological Solutions for Enhancing the Aluminium Resistance of Crop Plants 119 Gaofeng Zhou, Emmanuel Delhaize, Meixue Zhou and Peter R Ryan Chapter 7 Soil Bacteria Support and Protect Plants Against Abiotic Stresses 143 Bianco Carmen and Defez Roberto Chapter 8 Soil Salinisation and Salt Stress in Crop Production 171 Gabrijel Ondrasek, Zed Rengel and Szilvia Veres VI Contents Part 2 Mechanisms and Tolerance 191 Chapter 9 Current Knowledge in Physiological and Genetic Mechanisms Underpinning Tolerances to Alkaline and Saline Subsoil Constraints of Broad Acre Cropping in Dryland Regions 193 Muhammad Javid, Marc Nicolas and Rebecca Ford Chapter 10 Trehalose and Abiotic Stress in Biological Systems 215 Mihaela Iordachescu and Ryozo Imai Chapter 11 Glyoxalase System and Reactive Oxygen Species Detoxification System in Plant Abiotic Stress Response and Tolerance: An Intimate Relationship 235 Mohammad Anwar Hossain, Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva and Masayuki Fujita Chapter 12 Stomatal Responses to Drought Stress and Air Humidity 267 Arve LE, Torre S, Olsen JE and Tanino KK Part 3 Genetics and Adaptation 281 Chapter 13 Plant Genes for Abiotic Stress 283 Loredana F. Ciarmiello, Pasqualina Woodrow, Amodio Fuggi, Giovanni Pontecorvo and Petronia Carillo Chapter 14 Plant Metabolomics: A Characterisation of Plant Responses to Abiotic Stresses 309 Annamaria Genga, Monica Mattana, Immacolata Coraggio, Franca Locatelli, Pietro Piffanelli and Roberto Consonni Chapter 15 The Importance of Genetic Diversity to Manage Abiotic Stress 351 Geraldo Magela de Almeida Cançado Chapter 16 Emission and Function of Volatile Organic Compounds in Response to Abiotic Stress 367 Francesco Spinelli, Antonio Cellini, Livia Marchetti, Karthik Mudigere Nagesh and Chiara Piovene Chapter 17 Epigenetic Chromatin Regulators as Mediators of Abiotic Stress Responses in Cereals 395 Aliki Kapazoglou and Athanasios Tsaftaris Chapter 18 C 4 Plants Adaptation to High Levels of CO 2 and to Drought Environments 415 María Valeria Lara and Carlos Santiago Andreo Preface World population is growing at an alarming rate and is anticipated to reach about six billion by the end of the year 2050. On the other hand, agricultural productivity is not increasing at a required rate to keep up with the food demand. The reasons for this are water shortages, depleting soil fertility and mainly various abiotic stresses. Therefore, minimizing these losses is a major area of concern for all nations to cope with the increasing food requirements. Stress is defined as any environmental variable, which can induce a potentially injurious strain in plants. The concept of optimal growth conditions is a fundamental principle in biology. Since living organisms cannot control environmental conditions, they have evolved two major strategies for surviving adverse environmental conditions i.e. stress avoidance or stress tolerance. The avoidance mechanism is most obvious in warm blooded animals that simply move away from the region of stressful stimuli. Plants lack this response mechanism, which is mobility; hence they have evolved intricate biochemical, molecular and genetic mechanisms to avoid stress. For example, they alter life cycle in such a way that a stress sensitive growth period is before or after the advent of the stressful environmental condition. On the other hand, tolerance mechanisms mainly involve biochemical and metabolic means which are in turn regulated by genes. All the abiotic stresses have profound influence on ecological and agricultural systems. Water stress is the predominant stress among all the abiotic stresses which causes enormous loss in production of crops, more so because water stress is usually accompanied by other stresses like salinity, high temperature and nutrient deficiencies. In addition, the impact of global climate change on crop production has emerged as a major research priority during the past decade. Several forecasts for coming decades project increase in atmospheric CO 2 and temperature, changes in precipitation resulting in more frequent droughts and floods, widespread runoff leading to leaching of soil nutrients and reduction in fresh-water availability. Each one of the abiotic stress conditions in singularity or in combination requires a set of specific acclimation response, tailored to the definite needs of the plant, and that a combination of two or more different stresses might require a response that is also equally specific. Experimental evidence indicates that it is not adequate to study each of the individual stresses separately and that the stress combination should be regarded as a new state of abiotic stress in plants that requires a new defense or acclimation response. X Preface This book is broadly divided into sections on the stresses, their mechanisms and tolerance, genetics and adaptation. The book focuses on the mechanic aspects in addition to referring to some adaptation features. Furthermore, tools to study abiotic stresses such as chlorophyll and fluorescence are highlighted in one of the chapters of the book. Of special significance is the comprehensive state of the art understanding of plant response to heavy metals. The fast pace at which developments and novel findings that are recently taking place in the cutting edge areas of molecular biology and basic genetics, have reinforced and augmented the efficiency of science outputs in dealing with plant abiotic stresses. We have moved in to the next phase in science, i.e. ‘post-genomics era’. The book addresses the role of the new area of plant sciences namely “plant metabolomics” in abiotic stress which essentially is the systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprints that specific cellular processes leave behind under stress. The emerging area of epigenetics, which is the study of changes produced in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes, in the underlying DNA sequence and its role in abiotic stress is emphasized in this book in the context of the role of chromatin regulators. This multi authored edited compilation attempts to put forth a comprehensive picture in a systems approach wherein mechanism and adaptation aspects of abiotic stress will be dealt with. The chief objective of the book hence is to deliver state of the art information for comprehending the nature of abiotic stress in plants. We attempt here to present a judicious mixture of outlooks so as to interest workers in all areas of plant sciences. We trust that the information covered in this book will be useful in building strategies to counter abiotic stress in plants. Arun K. Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA) Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Santoshnagar, Andhra Pradesh India [...]... The obtained results showed as the nutrient solution temperatures of 10°C induced an increase 8 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations in ΦPSII parameters indicating that the majority of photons absorbed by PSII were used in photochemistry and that PSII centers were maintained in an oxidized state Water stress is another important abiotic stress that induces reduction of growth and yield... transgenic plants with novel genes or altered expression levels of the existing genes A fundamental biological understanding and knowledge of the effects of salt stress on plants is necessary to provide additional 22 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations information for the dissection of the plant response to salinity and try to find future applications for ameliorating the impact of salinity... of entry of bacterial and fungal pathogens and disrupts vascular system Many responses can be activated following wounding such as defense and repair mechanisms which require a high metabolic demand upon wounded region These responses determine 12 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations the synthesis of new molecules and then energy and carbon skeleton An interesting work reported the... again and this phenomenon is due to two types of quenching mechanisms The presence of light induced the activation of enzymes involved in CO2 assimilation and the stomatal aperture that determines that electrons are transferred away PSII This induced the so-called photochemical quenching, qP At the same time, there is an increase in the conversion of light energy into 4 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms. .. experiencing increasing salt stress problems resulting from seawater intrusion into aquifers and irrigation with brackish water (Rana & Katerji, 2000) While an important cause of salinity in Australian continent is the deposition of oceanic salts carried in wind and rain (R Munns & Tester, 2008) An additional, important source of Fig 1 Percentage of irrigated lands damaged by salinity Salinity Stress and. .. the work were compared results obtained by conventional Chl fluorescence analysis and the technique of Chl fluorescence imaging Image analysis of Fv/Fm showed a different response in plants 10 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations subjected to ozone or inoculated with P setosa Indeed, in ozonated leaves fluorescence yield was lower in leaf veins than in the mesophyll with the exception... 1998) In variegated leaves of Calathea makoyana the effect of chilling (5° and 10°C for 1-7 d) on PSII efficiency was studied in order to understand the causes of chilling-induced photoinhibition (Hogewoning & Harbinson, 2007) The individual leaves were divided into a shaded zone and two illuminated, chilled zones Chilling up to 7 d in the dark did not influence PSII efficiency whereas chilling in the... on salinized soils of coastal and arid regions due to specific mechanisms of salt tolerance developed during their phylogenetic adaptation Depending on their salt-tolerating capacity, these plants can be either obligate and characterized by low morphological and taxonomical diversity with relative growth rates increasing up to 50% sea water or facultative and found 24 Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms. .. photosynthesis, protein synthesis and energy and lipid metabolism are affected (Parida & Das, 2005) During initial exposure to salinity, plants experience water stress, which in turn reduces leaf expansion The osmotic effects of salinity stress can be observed immediately after salt application and are believed to continue for the duration of exposure, resulting in inhibited cell expansion and cell division,... PSII efficiency and non-photochemical quenching parameters They found that under low and moderate light intensity, the onset of drought stress caused an increase in the operating quantum efficiency of PSII (ΦPSII) which indicated increased photorespiration since photosynthesis was hardly affected by water shortage The increase in ΦPSII was caused by an increase in Fv’/Fm’ and by a decrease in non-photochemical . ABIOTIC STRESS IN PLANTS – MECHANISMS AND ADAPTATIONS Edited by Arun Kumar Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations. using Chl fluorescence imaging. The obtained results showed as the nutrient solution temperatures of 10°C induced an increase Abiotic Stress in Plants – Mechanisms and Adaptations 8 in. Mechanisms and Tolerance 191 Chapter 9 Current Knowledge in Physiological and Genetic Mechanisms Underpinning Tolerances to Alkaline and Saline Subsoil Constraints of Broad Acre Cropping in