A University of Missouri scientist recently discovered a new approach for gauging plant stress, which is when plants experience multiple stressors from heat, drought, and flooding due to extreme weather occurrences.

The discovery comprises a once-tarnished collection of molecules known as reactive oxygen species or ROS, generated by anything using oxygen like people, plants, and animals, a Phys.org report specified.

However, MU's Ron Mittler has revealed a redeeming characteristic of ROS, their function as a communication signal that can specify if plants are stressed out.

Mittler, whose appointment is in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, explained that when stressors from heat and drought are added together, plants do not have groundwater to draw from, so they close the leaf pores called "stomata," and this makes the leaves turn hot.

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Plants
(Photo: Pexels/sohail nachiti)
An approach to gauge stress in plants was discovered.


Plant's Survival Rate and Stressor

This is why the combination of drought and heat is hazardous since the leaf temperature is much higher than that of a plant subjected to only heat.

The change, Mittler continued explaining, can be anywhere between two and four degrees, making such a difference between life and death.

Plant stress is also tied to crop loss, though existing analytical research on the subject has usually focused on how crops react to only one stressor.

Nonetheless, Mittler said, the survival rate of a plant will dramatically drop as the number of stressors continues to rise to three to six different stressors.

Describing their study published in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Mittler also said that keeping ROS levels in check is key. Either too much or too little can be dangerous, although an optimum level of ROS can be considered safe for the plant's life.

Reactive Oxygen Species

Mittler, born and raised in Israel, wanted to be a veterinarian as he grew up. However, after he enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he recalled spending the summer during the late 1980s as an undergraduate student who worked in an agricultural laboratory where he got so attached to science, specifically the role of ROS in plants. From then on, he has been studying ROS.

During that time, he shared, they were trying to determine why some cell lines were more resistant to salinity than others. That, he continued explaining, was his "first-ever scientific research problem."

Nonetheless, he then began to work on desert plants and, from there on, reactive oxygen species and blue-green algae, according to a similar AGDaily report.

This research was backed by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the University of Missouri Interdisciplinary Plant Group, the Excellence of Science Research, and the University of Missouri Research Foundation-Founders.

Related information about stressed-out plants is shown on Bob and His Facts' YouTube video below:

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