Xinyou Yin

This special issue compiles a set of 22 Expert Reviews on timely topics in plant biology, ranging from plant defenses and abiotic stress responses, to genome evolution. These articles highlight recent progress in understanding plant defenses, physiology, and genomes, and applying this understanding, as well as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to mitigate the effects of climate change and accelerate crop breeding. Indeed, crop breeding is a major theme of this issue.

1 Introduction Understanding photosynthesis requires insights into parameters or processes that limit photosynthetic rates. These processes themselves are sensitive to changes in environmental variables like light, temperature, water, and nutrients. Quantifying relative limitations of these processes to the CO2-assimilation rate (A) can help understand leaf ecophysiology and may identify strategies to improve crop performance under various conditions.

Sessile plants continuously regulate and adapt to dynamic environments that introduce a range of stress factors, including abiotic stressors such as variations in light intensity, extreme temperatures, high salinity, and physical damage, as well as biotic stressors caused by pathogens like bacteria, fungi, and viruses.