Books dealing with climatic change are commonplace, as are those concerned with effects of environmental stresses on plants. The present volume distinguishes itself from earlier publications by highlighting several interrelated environmental stresses that are changing in intensity as the climate warms in response to the accumulation of 'greenhouse' gases. The stresses examined at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop upon which this book is based include atmospheric pollutants, flooding and sub mergence, drought and cold. In future, successful farming or landscape management will ultimately depend on strategies that offset the effects of these and other environmental constraints, while exploiting more favourable features. However, the to predicted speed of climate change may exceed the rate at which new approaches farming, forestry, landscape management and genetic conservation can be developed through experience and retroactive response. The alternative is to anticipate future needs and thus identify appropriate management and legislative strategies by research and discussion. The contents of this volume contribute to these vital processes, upon which the productivity of agroecosystems and conservation of natural ecosystems may increasingly depend. Those with any lingering doubts concerning the gravity of the likely future situation are especially encouraged to read the opening chapter. For convenience, chapters discussing pollution, flooding, drought and cold are grouped in separate sections. However, many authors have taken care to emphasise that interactions between the changing combinations of stresses pose particular problems for plants and plant communities.

Klappentext

The current climatic changes mean increasing environmental stress on plants: gaseous pollutants such as carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and oxides of nitrogen, together with the impacts of flooding and submergence, drought and cold. The physiological, biochemical and molecular biological bases of injury to plants and their adaptations to this stress are discussed in this volume. The importance of the combined effects of more than one type of stress is emphasized, e.g. increased ultraviolet (UVB) radiation exacerbating injury from drought or offsetting beneficial effects of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The prospects for improving tolerance to environmental stress by genetic engineering are assessed and some examples of recent progress described.

Inhalt
Section I. Introduction.- The potential effects of climate change on world food supply.- Manifestations of mechanical stress in membranes: A prospective hypothesis of endogenous expression of exogenous stress signalling.- Section II. Atmospheric Pollution.- Significance of increasing ambient CO2 for plant growth and survival, and interactions with air pollution.- Ozone, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides: Some effects on the water relations of herbaceous plants and trees.- Ozone/sulphur dioxide interactions in temperate arable crops.- Predisposition to stress following exposure to air pollution.- Influence of nitrogenous air pollutants on carbon dioxide and ozone effects on vegetation.- Impact of air pollutants on plants in hot, dry climates.- The molecular biology of plants exposed to ultraviolet-B radiation and the interaction with other stresses.- The assessment of plant damage by reactive hydrocarbons and their oxidation products.- Too much of a good thing? Long-term exposure to elevated CO2 decreases carboxylating and photorespiratory enzymes and increases respiratory enzyme activity in Spruce.- Section III. Flooding and Submergence.- Climatic change and wetland vegetation in Northern Europe.- Response of coastal vegetation to flooding and salinity: a case study in the rapidly subsiding Mississippi River deltaic plain, USA.- Flood tolerant and flood sensitive plants under primary and secondary anoxia.- Responses to total submergence in tolerant and intolerant riverside species.- Inorganic carbon assimilation and growth of aquatic macrophytes.- A microelectrode study of oxygen distribution in the roots of intact maize seedlings.- Long term survival of rhizomatous species under oxygen deprivation.- Promotion of stem extension in an aquatic monocot (Potamogeton pectinatus L.) by the complete absence of oxygen, and by partial oxygen shortage.- Metabolic acclimation to anoxic conditions and biochemical basis of death.- Energy and fermentation metabolism in hypoxic rice coleoptiles a multinuclear NMR approach.- Endogenous phytohormones and germination of rice under anoxia: indoleacetic acid and abscisic acid.- Preliminary evidence of nitrate assimilation during the anaerobic germination of rice.- Molecular genetic basis of metabolic adaptation to anoxia in maize and its possible utility for improving tolerance of crops to soil waterlogging.- Metabolic acclimation in winter cereals by interacting low temperature stresses.- Metabolic and cellular impact of ice encasement on herbage plants.- Responses of nodulated legumes to oxygen deficiency.- Section IV. Drought.- Effects of drought and elevated CO2 on plant water use efficiency and productivity.- Water relations in controlled environments and the field.- The physiology of survival at the limits of farming in the dry tropics.- Plant water stress under low rainfall, high temperature summer conditions in Portugal.- Identification of stress tolerance traits in sugar beet.- Stomatal responses to abscisic acid in natural environments.- ABA and the control of growth and physiology of stressed plants.- Regulation of root growth at low water potentials.- Stress-enhanced metabolism of abscisic acid.- Molecular biological responses to drought in maize.- Replacement of glycine betaine by ß-alanine betaine, choline-O-sulphate or dimethylsulphoniopropionate in plants adapted to interacting stresses.- Wall extensibility and the growth of salt stressed leaves.- Growth and composition of nitrogen and water stressed pepper plants, their assessment by remote sensing and their herbivory effects.-Screening methods for determining drought resistance in barley.- Section V. Cold.- Low temperature induced biochemical mechanisms: implications for cold acclimation and de-acclimation.- Molecular mechanisms of freeze-thaw injury and cold acclimation herbaceous plants: merging physiological and genetic approaches.- Molecular biology of cold tolerance.- Redesigning crops for increased tolerance to freezing stress.- The molecular mechanism of the low-temperature tolerance of plants studied by gene technology of membrane lipids.- Aspects of the cellular and molecular basis of cold tolerance in plants.- Section VI. Reports of Working Groups.- Atmospheric Pollution Working Group.- Flooding and Submergence Working Group.- Drought Stress Working Group.- Cold Stress Working Group.