Hierarchical Regulation and Adaptive Evolution of Higher Plants Under Abiotic Stress

Higher plants, as essential components of global ecosystems, are frequently challenged by abiotic stresses such as heat, drought, and salt. These stressors induce significant physiological damage, including leaf thinning, stomatal closure, reduced photosynthetic efficiency, and impaired root growth. In response, plants have evolved intricate regulatory mechanisms, including metabolic reprogramming and post-transcriptional modification, and undergo adaptive evolution under prolonged stress exposure. These adaptive processes often involve conserved epigenetic strategies, such as DNA methylation and histone acetylation. This review summarizes the detrimental effects of heat, drought, and salt stress on plant physiology and analyzes multilevel regulatory networks from molecular, cellular, physiological, and ecological perspectives. We further explore the core signaling pathways, including epigenetic modifications, post-transcriptional regulation, and hormone-mediated signal transduction and propose an integrative hierarchical regulation model to explain how plants achieve adaptive evolution in adverse environments.