Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) DivisionCenter for Desert Agriculture
Plant Cell and Developmental Biology, Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia
Plant Science
Date
2021-05-10Submitted Date
2021-03-30Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/669485
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Plants, as sessile organisms, have evolved a remarkable developmental plasticity to cope with their changing environment. When growing in hostile desert conditions, plants have to grow and thrive in heat and drought. This review discusses how desert plants have adapted their root system architecture (RSA) to cope with scarce water availability and poor nutrient availability in the desert soil. First, we describe how some species can survive by developing deep tap roots to access the groundwater while others produce shallow roots to exploit the short rain seasons and unpredictable rainfalls. Then, we discuss how desert plants have evolved unique developmental programs like having determinate meristems in the case of cacti while forming a branched and compact root system that allows efficient water uptake during wet periods. The remote germination mechanism in date palms is another example of developmental adaptation to survive in the dry and hot desert surface. Date palms have also designed non-gravitropic secondary roots, termed pneumatophores, to maximize water and nutrient uptake. Next, we highlight the distinct anatomical features developed by desert species in response to drought like narrow vessels, high tissue suberization, and air spaces within the root cortex tissue. Finally, we discuss the beneficial impact of the microbiome in promoting root growth in desert conditions and how these characteristics can be exploited to engineer resilient crops with a greater ability to deal with salinity induced by irrigation and with the increasing drought caused by global warming.Citation
Kirschner, G. K., Xiao, T. T., & Blilou, I. (2021). Rooting in the Desert: A Developmental Overview on Desert Plants. Genes, 12(5), 709. doi:10.3390/genes12050709Sponsors
This study was supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) baseline funding given to Ikram Blilou.Publisher
MDPI AGJournal
GenesPubMed ID
34068546Additional Links
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/12/5/709ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3390/genes12050709
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
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