Plant Abiotic Stress Tolerance: Agronomic, Molecular and Biotechnological Approaches

Plants have to manage a series of environmental stresses throughout their entire lifespan. Among these, abiotic stress is the most detrimental; one that is responsible for nearly 50% of crop yield reduction and appears to be a potential threat to global food security in coming decades. Plant growth and development reduces drastically due to adverse effects of abiotic stresses. It has been estimated that crop can exhibit only 30% of their genetic potentiality under abiotic stress condition. So, this is a fundamental need to understand the stress responses to facilitate breeders to develop stress resistant and stress tolerant cultivars along with good management practices to withstand abiotic stresses. Also, a holistic approach to understanding the molecular and biochemical interactions of plants is important to implement the knowledge of resistance mechanisms under abiotic stresses. Agronomic practices like selecting cultivars that is tolerant to wide range of climatic condition, planting date, irrigation scheduling, fertilizer management could be some of the effective short-term adaptive tools to fight against abiotic stresses. In addition, "system biology" and "omics approaches" in recent studies offer a long-term opportunity at the molecular level in dealing with abiotic stresses. The genetic approach, for example, selection and identification of major conditioning genes by linkage mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL), production of mutant genes and transgenic introduction of novel genes, has imparted some tolerant characteristics in crop varieties from their wild ancestors. Recently research has revealed the interactions between micro-RNAs (miRNAs) and plant stress responses exposed to salinity, freezing stress and dehydration. Accordingly transgenic approaches to generate stress-tolerant plant are one of the most interesting researches to date.

This book presents the recent development of agronomic and molecular approaches in conferring plant abiotic stress tolerance in an organized way. The present volume will be of great interest among research students and teaching community, and can also be used as reference material by professional researchers.

Mirza Hasanuzzaman is Professor of Agronomy at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University in Dhaka. He received his Ph.D. on 'Plant Stress Physiology and Antioxidant Metabolism' from Ehime University, Japan with a scholarship from the Japanese government (MEXT). Later, he completed his postdoctoral research at the Center of Molecular Biosciences, University of the Ryukyus, Japan, as a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellowship. He was also the recipient of the Australian Government's Endeavour Research Fellowship for postdoctoral research as an Adjunct Senior Researcher at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Dr. Hasanuzzaman's current work is focused on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of environmental stress tolerance. Dr. Hasanuzzaman has published over 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has edited six books and written 30 book chapters on important aspects of plant physiology, plant stress tolerance, and crop production. According to Scopus^(R), Dr. Hasanuzzaman's publications have received about 3,000 citations with an h-index of 26. He is an editor and reviewer for more than 50 peer-reviewed international journals and was a recipient of the 'Publons Peer Review Award 2017 and 2018'. He has been honored by different authorities for his outstanding performance in different fields like research and education, and he has received the World Academy of Science Young Scientist Award (2014).

Khalid Rehman Hakeem is Associate Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has completed his Ph.D. (Botany) from Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India in 2011. Dr. Hakeem has worked as Post Doctorate Fellow in 2012 and Fellow Researcher (Associate Prof.) from 2013-2016 at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia. His specialty is Plant Eco-Physiology, Biotechnology & Molecular biology, Plant-Microbe-soil interactions and Environmental Sciences and so far has edited and authored more than 30 books with Springer International, Academic Press (Elsevier), CRC Press etc. He has also to his credit more than 120 research publications in peer-reviewed international journals, including 50 book chapters in edited volumes with international publishers. He is also the Editorial board member and reviewer of several high impact international Journals. Dr. Hakeem is currently engaged in studying the plant processes at ecophysiological as well as proteomic levels.

Kamrun Nahar is Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Botany at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She received her PhD Degree on 'Environmental Stress Physiology of Plants' in 2016 from the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Ehime University, Japan with the Japanese Government (MEXT) Scholarship. Dr. Nahar has been involved in research with field crops emphasizing stress physiology since 2006. She has completed several research works and also continuing research project funded by Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University Research System and Ministry of Science and Technology (Bangladesh). She is supervising M.S. students. Dr. Nahar published 50 articles and chapters related to plant physiology and environmental stresses with Springer, Elsevier, CRC Press, Wiley, etc. Her publications reached about 2000 citations with h-index: 22 (according to Scopus^(R)). She is involved in editorial activities and reviewer of international journals. She is active member of about 20 professional societies. Dr. Nahar attended different international conferences and presented 10 papers, and posters in national and international conferences in different countries (USA, Australia, Japan, Austria, Russia, China, etc.).

Hesham F. Alharby is Associate Professor in Department of Biological Sciences at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He got his PhD from the plant biology school in University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia in 2014. Dr. Alharby interested with the work focused in plant biology, mainly in Ecophysiology and Molecular biology. Dr. Alharby published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and attended several international conferences. He was a head of laboratories at teachers college, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2005. At the moment, he is a head of the plant section in the department of biological sciences at KAU.