Plant Responses to Environmental Stress

Plants have a number of mechanisms to cope

with stresses in their environment,
which include such physical conditions as
water (too much as well as drought),
temperature (hot and cold), saline soils and
oxygen deprivation, as well coping with
biotic stresses such as predators and
pathogens.
 Physical Stresses in the Environment
Water
Plants respond to potential dehydration by
• Leaf drop,
• Xeromorphic leaf
structure
• Leaf or stem succulence
• Deep taproots
• Abscisic acid monitors
water condition in cells and leads to stomatal
closure to minimize immediate water loss.
 Abscisic Acid and LEA Proteins
• Synthesis of LEA proteins (late
embryogenesis proteins).
• LEA proteins occur naturally
in maturing seeds as they
desiccate for dormancy.
• The LEA proteins help to
stabilize the membranes and
other proteins of the
dehydrated cells
• LEA genes can also help plants
grow better during drought.
Oxygen
 Heat
• Plants have poor heat-regulating mechanisms.
• Their metabolism, in particular, can be
seriously impacted by hot temperatures.
• Transpiration
• Close stomata, and that shuts down
transpiration.
• Plants synthesize a class of proteins which may
function to protect enzymes that would be
denatured by the excess heat. These proteins
are called heat-shock proteins.
 Cold
• Plants produce more unsaturated membrane
fatty acids in cold temperatures to maintain
membrane fluidity needed for transport proteins.
• This process works for gradual cooling.
• Most plants drop fragile parts prior to the cold
onset
• Sudden frosts have a serious impact on plant
• Ice crystals form in plant tissues when air
temperatures fall below freezing
• Antifreeze proteins to retard growth of ice
crystals within cells.
 Salts
• High concentrations of mineral salts decrease water

absorption.

• High concentrations of some mineral salts, such as

sodium, are also directly toxic to plants.

• Halophytes

• Most have active salt glands in leaf epidermal cells that

excrete salt. Water from the atmosphere condenses on

the salt secreted on the surface of the leaves.
Mangrove Salt Excretion
Salt Glands
 General Climate Response
• Ring pattern indicates a general warming
climate, with more growth (wider rings)
during the past half century.
• Moisture has similar effects on tree rings.
• Early xylem growth
Plant Responses to their Biotic Environment

• The best defense is a good offense, plants

respond to many predator attacks with a
chemical offense, the secondary metabolites.
• Distasteful and/or toxic to others
• To prevent the toxin from killing the plant, plants
store secondary metabolites in vacuoles
• After predator chewing on the plant, these enter
the predator’s digestive tract.
• In some cases, the secondary metabolite is
produced in a non-toxic form but gets converted in
the predator’s digestive tract, often by bacteria, into
a toxic form.
• Allelopathy
• Allelopathy
The inhibition of growth in one species of plants
by chemicals produced by another species.

• Toxins leached from leaves onto soil inhibit

germination and growth by potential
competitors.
• Eucalyptus secretions are so acidic that they can
oxidize paint surfaces.
• Many desert plants (like sagebrush) also exhibit
this
• Consistently the predator selects the plant with
the least amount of the chemical to eat.
 The Predator Retaliation
• Some insect predators have evolved resistance to
secondary metabolites
• The monarch butterfly (Heliconius) has resistance to
the cyanogenic glycoside of its “host” and converts
glycosides to unharmful molecules to obtain nitrogen.
• Some beetles destroy the toxin-containing lactifers in
leaves and feast on the tasty parts.
 Mechanisms for Plant Wound Responses
• The secondary metabolites act as effective
deterrents
Growing Better
A few plants respond to
being eaten by herbivores by
growing faster and better.
… respond by producing
multiple shoots
adventitiously.
Dandelions Response to being Overeaten –
Normal Growth Pattern on Right
 Induced Chemical Defenses
• In addition to the always-present secondary
metabolites, plants have rapid responses that
are induced by the action of the predator or
pathogen.
• These responses activate transduction pathways
that lead to the production of chemical (and
other) deterrents to predation and wounding.
General Plant Signaling in Response to
Predator/Pathogen
 Genetically Determined Pathogen Response
• Many plants have evolved gene recognition
• Plant can permit some "munching" but prohibit virulent infestations.
• Both plant and non-virulent pathogens have genes that code for
receptor proteins.
• The plant genes "R" genes, pathogen's genes "avr" genes
• The signal molecule may be produced by
 The pathogen, such as peptides in a bacterium
 Wall fragments of a fungus
 Cell wall components of the plant broken when
the pathogen munched.
• Oligosaccharins in plant cell walls may function
as the recognition and signaling molecules.
• Avr and R receptors are often called elicitors.
• When the plant receptor protein and the
pathogen receptor protein match, the plant
mounts defenses against invasion by pathogen
 The Hypersensitive Response
• The usual response mechanism with an Avr-R
interaction is to produce antimicrobial agents,
called phytoalexins, and PR proteins in the
infected tissues.
• One phytoalexin,
camalexin, produced
by Arabidopsis, is
synthesized from the
amino acid, tryptophan.
• The PR proteins include enzymes that degrade
the cell walls of bacterial and fungal pathogens.
• One PR protein (chitinase) degrades the chitin
walls of fungi. PR protein response is less rapid
• H2O2 and NO are often synthesized immediately
in the wound area
• Cell death of the affected plant cells.
• These chemicals are often toxic to the pathogen
as well.
• When a gene specific defense is successful, the
plant typically seals off the infected area forming
a necrosis, destroying both its own tissue and
the pathogen.
 The Systemic Acquired Response
• Not only can plants mount a defense in the
infected area, but they also produce chemical
signals in the infected area that are
translocated to other parts of the plant to
provide resistance to infection, as mentioned
as one job of the PR proteins. This response is
known as a systemic acquired response (SAR).
• Salicylic acid, produced as part of the HR to wounding,
functions to activate a systemic acquired response.
• SAR resistance may be
 Shortlived, or last as long as a growing season, and
 Non-specific, but effective.
Salicylic acid is particularly effective against some virus
infections.
 Some plants produce the volatile methyl salicylate, which
travels through air to both parts of the affected plant and
to neighboring plants as a warning.
• SA may also be exported to other parts of the plant
initiating defense Pathogen resistant protein synthesis.
 Specific Immunity to RNA Viruses
• Viruses infect both vertically (passed from
generation to generation) and horizontally
(through direct infection).
• Some plants have enzymes that can form
double-stranded RNA from the viral RNA, and
chop the double-stranded RNA into siRNA
(small interference RNA) to degrade the viral
mRNA before it can be transcribed.
Jasmonic Acid and Wound Response
• A small peptide, systemin, is produced in the
wound area in response to the predator’s
saliva.
• Systemin (first isolated from tomato plants)
promotes fatty acids in the plasma membrane
to be converted to jasmonic acid. Jasmonic
acid moves through plasmodesmata to
phloem sieve tubes throughout the plant and
activates signal transduction pathways leading
to proteinase inhibitors that bind to digestive
enzymes of the predator.
 Dietary Defense
• Some plants produce
an amino acid
(canavanine) that gets
incorporated into
larvae that die when
they substitute it for
an amino acid needed
in protein synthesis.
 Using Proxies
• Plants, being
clever, also
take
advantage of
other
organisms to
destroy
and/or deter
the plant
predator.
• In an intricate symbiosis, the Acacia tree feeds
and hosts ants, which protect the tree from
potential predators and competitors. If a pest
(or a clothes pin)

touches the tree,

the ants swarm to

deter it or destroy it
• Beans injured by predators secrete a volatile
chemical that is detected by adjacent plants, which
activate defense molecules.