Salinity Stress and Salt Tolerance
By P. Carillo, M. Annunziata, G. Pontecorvo, A. Fuggi, P. Woodrow. 2011
264 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Salinity is one of the most serious factors limiting the productivity of agricultural crops, with adverse effects on germination, plant vigour and crop yield (R Munns & Tester, 2008). Salinization affects many irrigated areas mainly due to the use of brackish water. Worldwide, more than 45 million hectares of irrigated land have been damaged by salt, and 1.5 million hectares are taken out of production each year as a result of high salinity levels in the soil (R Munns & Tester, 2008). High salinity affects plants in several ways: water stress, ion toxicity, nutritional disorders, oxidative stress, alteration of metabolic processes, membrane disorganization, reduction of cell division and expansion, genotoxicity (Hasegawa, Bressan, Zhu, & Bohnert, 2000; R. Munns, 2002; Zhu, 2007). Together, these effects reduce plant growth, development and survival. During the onset and development of salt stress within a plant, all the major processes such as photosynthesis, protein synthesis and energy and lipid metabolism are affected (Parida & Das, 2005). During initial exposure to salinity, plants experience water stress, which in turn reduces leaf expansion. The osmotic effects of salinity stress can be observed immediately after salt application and are believed to continue for the duration of exposure, resulting in inhibited cell expansion and cell division, as well as stomatal closure (T. J. Flowers, 2004; R. Munns, 2002). During long-term exposure to salinity, plants experience ionic stress, which can lead to premature senescence of adult leaves, and thus a reduction in the photosynthetic area available to support continued growth (Cramer & Nowak, 1992). In fact, excess sodium and more importantly chloride has the potential to affect plant enzymes and cause cell swelling, resulting in reduced energy production and other physiological changes (Larcher 1980). Ionic stress results in premature senescence of older leaves and in toxicity symptoms (chlorosis, necrosis) in mature leaves due to high Na+ which affects plants by disrupting protein synthesis and interfering with enzyme activity (Hasegawa, Bressan, Zhu, & Bohnert, 2000; R. Munns, 2002; R Munns & Termaat, 1986). Many plants have evolved several mechanisms either to exclude salt from their cells or to tolerate its presence within the cells. In this chapter, we mainly discuss about soil salinity, its effects on plants and tolerance mechanisms which permit the plants to withstand stress, with particular emphasis on ion homeostasis, Na+ exclusion and tissue tolerance. Moreover we give a synthetic overview of the two major approaches that have been used to improve stress tolerance: exploitation of natural genetic variations and generation of transgenic plants with novel genes or altered expression levels of the existing genes. A fundamental biological understanding and knowledge of the effects of salt stress on plants is necessary to provide additional
Subfields: Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b0c40d25be4d89164bf535814f2195736bf54266
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Citations in the corpus
- AMF Inoculation Enhances Growth and Improves the Nutrient Uptake Rates of Transplanted, Salt-Stressed Tomato Seedlings (2015, background): “dispersion of soil aggregates to break down; the increasing bulk density will make the soil more compact and decrease total porosity, thereby hampering soil aeration and as a result, plants in saline soils not only suffer from high Na+ levels, but are also affected by some degree of hypoxia [5].”
- Effect of salt stress on growth, electrolyte leakage, Na+ and K+ content in selected plant species (2019, background): “Carillo et al. (2011) stated that a plant might die should the concentration exceed 100–200 mmol NaCl.”
- New Insights on Plant Salt Tolerance Mechanisms and Their Potential Use for Breeding (2016, background): “Salts may arise naturally in subsoil (primary salinization) or maybe be introduced (secondary salinization) by soil amendments, inorganic fertilizers, and most importantly irrigation with brackish water (Carillo et al., 2011).”