Editorial: Physiological, molecular and genetic mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in tropical crops

The tropics are either the center of origin or domestication of many of the economically important crops currently cultivated in the world (Phalan et al., 2013; Fern and Fern, 2014; Laurance et al., 2014). Abiotic stresses, such as drought, chilling, and nutrient deficiency, are the major constraints for plant growth and productivity (Zhu, 2016). Therefore, an improved understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses and tolerance mechanisms, along with the discovery of novel stress-responsive pathways and genes, may contribute to efficient breeding strategies that could improve abiotic stress tolerance in tropical crops.

Tropical crops have evolved a number of complex mechanisms for abiotic stress tolerances. These mechanisms contribute to greater physiological performance through stress perception, signal transduction, transcriptional activation of stress-responsive target genes, and synthesis of stress-related proteins, metabolites and other molecules (Pardo and VanBuren, 2021). It is therefore imperative to accelerate the research efforts to unravel the mechanisms underlying abiotic stress tolerance in tropical crops. The research topic contains seven articles that addressed mechanistic aspects of crop tolerances to different abiotic stress factors in the tropics.