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Northern Light Reviews - Rethinking Plant Stress Biology in a Multifactorial World
Lidia S Pascual1, Rosa M Rivero2, Sara I Zandalinas1
1Department of Biology, Biochemistry and Environmental Sciences, University Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain.
Physiologia Plantarum
|August 6, 2026
Summary
Plants face complex environmental challenges from multiple stresses, impacting growth and yield. Understanding multifactorial stress combinations (MFSC) is crucial for crop resilience.
Area of Science:
- Plant Science
- Environmental Stress Biology
- Agricultural Science
Background:
- Plants globally face simultaneous or sequential abiotic/biotic stresses due to climate change, soil degradation, pollution, and pathogens.
- Existing research often fails to replicate the multifactorial stress combination (MFSC) environments plants naturally encounter.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent studies on MFSC impacting plants with three or more simultaneous stresses.
- To highlight environmental complexity as a key variable influencing plant performance.
Main Methods:
- Summarized evidence from recent MFSC studies involving multiple interacting stress factors.
- Utilized multi-omics analyses to investigate plant responses to MFSC.
- Developed a complexity-driven regulatory model for plant stress response.
Main Results:
- Increasing stress complexity leads to non-additive effects, significantly reducing plant growth, photosynthesis, and yield, even at moderate individual stress levels.
- MFSC alters hormonal networks, particularly abscisic acid signaling, represses photosynthesis genes, and reduces physiological performance.
- Plant responses to MFSC exhibit nonlinear scaling and threshold-like shifts in regulatory function.
Conclusions:
- Environmental complexity is a critical factor shaping plant performance under stress.
- MFSC necessitates a shift in breeding strategies and predictive crop modeling for future agricultural scenarios.
- A complexity-driven regulatory model explains how plants prioritize survival over growth under increasing stress loads.
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