Geoscience Reference
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Madan et al., 2012; Zhang and Huang, 2012). The future conse-
quences of climate change have been observed in locations such
as Africa, Australia, China, Europe, India, Japan, United States
and other countries (Olesen and Bindi, 2002; Desch et al., 2007;
Schlenker and Roberts, 2009; Hanna et al., 2011; Olesen et al.,
2011; Chang et al., 2012; Elsgaard et al., 2012; Mubaya et al.,
2012; Zhang and Huang, 2012; Beck, 2013).
Environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity, chilling,
freezing, and high temperatures cause adverse effects on the
growth of plants and reduce crop productivity, and, in extreme
cases, lead to plant death. Abiotic stress is the major cause of
crop loss worldwide, reducing average yields for most major
crop plants by more than 50% (Bray et al., 2000). Water stress in
its extended sense covers both drought and salt stress. Drought
and salinity are prevalent in several provinces, and may create
serious salinisation issues on more than 50% of all arable lands
by the year 2050 (Wang et al., 2003).
Since sequencing of the first plant genome Arabidopsis
thaliana to the recent high-throughput genomic and proteomic
approaches, an enormous quantity of information has been
produced to advance our apprehension of how the eukaryotic
genome works to induce and synchronise specific programmes
of gene expression. Many studies have revealed several mol-
ecules, for instance, transcription factors, cofactors, kinases,
activators and so on, as promising candidates for common play-
ers that are involved in cross talk between abiotic and biotic
stress-signalling pathways during the changing environmental
conditions. The response to the changing environmental stress
in plant development and physiology can be prone to dramatic
genomic-reprogramming processes that lead to alternative gene
programmes and expression patterns (Figure 13.1).
13.2 harmonisation of a stress-signalling pathway
and gene expression
Plants respond to a multitude of biotic and abiotic environmental
stress signals that influence growth and development. Plants are
subject to biotic and abiotic stresses, and have developed strat-
egies to protect themselves against these environmental stress
attacks. These environmental stress signals are converted into
appropriate signalling cascades to endure adverse conditions.
Knowledge of these signalling pathways, role and regulation will
lead to the design of stress-tolerant plants and a reduction in the
loss of crop productivity. To understand the mechanisms of an
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