Adaptive mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in resurrection plants

Abstract

The present changing climate scenario suggests an increased aridity in many areas of the globe in coming years, so the research into plant responses to water stress has become increasingly important. On a global basis, drought, in addition to high temperature and radiation, poses the most important environmental constraint to plant survival and crop productivity. Desiccation tolerance is not synonymous with drought tolerance. Desiccation tolerance is defined as the ability of a living structure to survive drying to equilibrium with low (<5%) RH and maintain low intracellular water concentrations (WCs), while drought tolerance is defined as survival at low environmental water availability while maintaining high internal water contents (WCs). Desiccation tolerance, which is one mechanism of drought tolerance, involves an integrated mechanism where morphological adaptations are complemented with physiological, biochemical and genetic tolerance. With the advent of genomic and proteomic tools, the knowledge of the adaptive strategies involved has been greatly improved.