Download or read book Wild Halophytes: Tools for Understanding Salt Tolerance Mechanisms of Plants and for Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change written by and published by Grigore Marius-Nicusor. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Halophytes, wild plants adapted to highly saline natural environments, represent extremelyuseful—and, at present, underutilised—experimental systems with which to investigate the mechanisms of salt tolerance in plants at the anatomical, physiological, biochemical and molecular levels.They can also provide biotechnological tools for the genetic improvement of salt tolerance in ourconventional crops, such as salt tolerance genes or salt-induced promoters. Furthermore, halophytesmay constitute the basis of sustainable ‘saline agriculture’ through commercial cultivation aftersome breeding to improve agronomic traits. All these issues are relevant in the present context ofclimate emergency, as soil salinity is—together with drought—the most critical environmental factorin reducing crop yield worldwide. In fact, climate change represents the most serious challengefor agricultural production and food security in the near future. Several of the topics mentionedabove—mainly referring to basic studies on salt tolerance mechanisms—are addressed in the articlespublished within this Special Issue.