Salt Stress in Plants: Signalling, Omics and Adaptations

Environmental conditions and changes, irrespective of source, cause a variety of stresses, one of the most prevalent of which is salt stress. Excess amount of salt in the soil adversely affects plant growth and development, and impairs production. Nearly 20% of the world’s cultivated area and nearly half of the world’s irrigated lands are affected by salinity. Processes such as seed germination, seedling growth and vigour, vegetative growth, flowering and fruit set are adversely affected by high salt concentration, ultimately causing diminished economic yield and also quality of produce. Most plants cannot tolerate salt-stress. High salt concentrations decrease the osmotic potential of soil solution, creating a water stress in plants and severe ion toxicity. The interactions of salts with mineral nutrition may result in nutrient imbalances and deficiencies. The consequence of all these can ultimately lead to plant death as a result of growth arrest and molecular damage. To achieve salt-tolerance, the foremost task is either to prevent or alleviate the damage, or to re-establish homeostatic conditions in the new stressful environment. Barring a few exceptions, the conventional breeding techniques have been unsuccessful in transferring the salt-tolerance trait to the target species. A host of genes encoding different structural and regulatory proteins have been used over the past 5–6 years for the development of a range of abiotic stress-tolerant plants. It has been shown that using regulatory genes is a more effective approach for developing stress-tolerant plants. Thus, understanding the molecular basis will be helpful in developing selection strategies for improving salinity tolerance. This book will shed light on the effect of salt stress on plants development, proteomics, genomics, genetic engineering, and plant adaptations, among other topics. The book will cover around 25 chapters with contributors from all over the world. ??

Dr. Parvaiz Ahmad (Editor)

Dr. Parvaiz is Assistant professor in Botany at A.S. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He has completed his post-graduation in Botany in 2000 from Jamia Hamdard New Delhi India. After his Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India in 2007 he joined International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi, India. His main research area is stress physiology and molecular biology. He has published more than 30 research papers in peer reviewed journals and 16 book chapters. He has also edited three volume 2 with Springer NY USA and 1 with Studium Press Pvt. India Ltd., New Delhi, India. He have received Junior Research Fellowship and Senior Research Fellowship by CSIR, New Delhi, India, during his Ph.D. Dr. Parvaiz has been awarded Young Scientist Award under Fast Track scheme in 2007, by Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi, India. Dr. parvaiz is actively engaged in studying the molecular and physio-biochemical responses of different agricultural and horticultural plants under environmental stress.

Prof. Mohamed M. Azooz (Co-editor)

Pro.Dr. M.M. Azooz is a Professor of Plant Physiology in department of Botany, Faculty of Science, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt. He received the B.Sc in 1984 and M. Sc. in 1990 from Assiut University, Egypt; and Ph.D in 1997 from South Valley University, Qena, Egypt in collaboration with Tübingen University, Germany. He has published more than 70 research articles in peer reviewed journals and 5 book chapters in international books. He has supervised many M.Sc. students and Ph.D. scholars till date and many are in progress. He is a member of editorial board and reviewer of many international journals. Prof. Azooz has been included in Marquis Who’s in the World (Biography, 28^th Edition, 2011), and in the “Top 100 Scientists” list, International Biographical Centre, Cambridge-UK, 2011. Major focus of his research has been on the physiological, biochemical and molecular responses of plants against various biotic and abiotic stresses and the mechanisms of tolerance.

Prof. MNV Prasad (Co-editor)

Prof. MNV Prasad is a Professor in Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad, India. He received the B.Sc. (1973) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees from Andhra University, India, and the Ph.D. degree (1979) in botany from the University of Lucknow, India. Prasad had published 138 articles in peer reviewed journals and 84 book chapters and conference proceedings in the broad area of environmental botany and heavy metal stress in plants. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor for twelve books (John Wiley and Sons Inc. New York; CRC Press, Boca Raton; Springer-Verlag Heidelberg; Narosa Publishing House, New Delhi; Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht; Marcel Dekker, New York, Fizmatlit Publishers. Moscow, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India). He is the receipeint of Pitamber Pant National Environment Fellowship of 2007 awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. He has served as visiting professor/guest researcher in many universities in different parts of the world viz., Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Kazakhstan, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.