Overviewing Drought and Heat Stress Amelioration—From Plant Responses to Microbe-Mediated Mitigation

Saima Iqbal, Muhammad Aamir Iqbal (), Chunjia Li, Asif Iqbal and Rana Nadeem Abbas
Additional contact information
Saima Iqbal: Faculty of Medicine, Sultan Zainal Abidin University, Kuala Terengganu 20000, Malaysia
Muhammad Aamir Iqbal: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Poonch Rawalakot, Rawalakot 12350, Pakistan
Chunjia Li: Yunnan Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Genetic Improvement, Sugarcane Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kaiyuan 661699, China
Asif Iqbal: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan
Rana Nadeem Abbas: Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: Microbes (e.g., plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and endophytes) are the natural inhabitants of the soil-plant-environment ecosystem having the potential to ameliorate the negative effects of environmental extremities. Plant-microbe interactions are integral events of agricultural ecosystems which must be studied in order to modulate the systemic mechanisms in field crops. Under changing climatic scenarios, drought and heat stresses tend to induce numerous physiological, morphological, metabolic and biochemical alterations in crop plants, while microbes hold the potential to mitigate these adverse impacts in a sustainable way. However, plant-microbe interaction mechanisms remain understudied owing to their complexities in the rhizosphere and within the cellular systems of plants. In this review, we have attempted to summarize microbes’ interactions with crop plants that tend to influence hormonal and nutrients balance, and the biosynthesis of metabolites and phytohormones, etc. In particular, focus has been kept on the underlying mechanisms related to plant-microbe interactions which confer abiotic stress tolerance. Moreover, various physiological, morphological, metabolic and biochemical responses of plants subjected to water scarcity and elevated temperatures have been synthesized objectively. Lastly, from the perspective of microbes’ application as biofertilizers, both challenges and future research needs to develop microbe-mediated tolerance as a biologically potent strategy have been strategically pointed out.

Keywords: abiotic stresses; biochemical responses; heat amelioration; morphological alterations; rhizobia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1671/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1671/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1671-:d:1036459

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().