Abiotic stress has a detrimental impact on the living organisms in a specific environment and constitutes a major constraint to global agricultural production. The adverse environmental conditions that plants encounter during their life cycle not only disturb their metabolic reactions, but also hamper their growth and development on cellular and whole plant levels. These conditions are of great concern, particularly for those countries whose economies primarily rely on agriculture. Under abiotic stresses, plants amalgamate multiple external stress cues to bring about a coordinated response and establish mechanisms to mitigate such stresses by triggering a cascade of events leading to enhanced tolerance.

"Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants under Changing Environment," "Volume 2" displays the ways by which plants utilize and integrate many common signals and subsequent pathways to cope with less favourable environmental conditions." "The book also describes the use of contemporary tools for the improvement of plants under such stressed environments. Concise yet comprehensive, "Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants under Changing Environment," "Volume 2" is an indispensable resource for researchers, students, environmentalists and many others in this burgeoning area of research."

With contributions that review research on this topic throughout the world, "Oxidative Damage to Plants" covers key areas of discovery, from the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROSs), their mechanisms, quenching of these ROSs through enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants, and detailed aspects of such antioxidants as SOD and CAT.

Environmental stress is responsible for the generation of oxidative stress, which causes oxidative damage to biomolecules and hence reduces crop yield. To cope up with these problems, scientists have to fully understand the generation of reactive oxygen species, its impact on plants and how plants will be able to withstand these stresses.
Provides invaluable information about the role of antioxidants in alleviating oxidative stressExamines both the negative effects (senescence, impaired photosynthesis and necrosis) and positive effects (crucial role that superoxide plays against invading microbes) of ROS on plantsFeatures contributors from a variety of regions globally

This book will shed light on the effect of salt stress on plants development, proteomics, genomics, genetic engineering, and plant adaptations, among other topics. Understanding the molecular basis will be helpful in developing selection strategies for improving salinity tolerance. The book will cover around 25 chapters with contributors from all over the world.

Abiotic stress drastically limits agricultural crop productivity worldwide. Climate change threatens the sustainable agriculture with its rapid and unpredictable effects, making it difficult for agriculturists and farmers to respond to the challenges cropping up from environmental stresses.In light of population growth and climate changes, investment in agriculture is the only way to avert wide scale food shortages. This challenge comes at a time when plant sciences are witnessing remarkable progress in understanding the fundamental processes of plant growth and development. Plant researchershave identifiedgenes controlling different aspects of plant growth and development, but many challenges still exist in creating an apt infrastructure, access to bioinformatics and good crop results. "Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume2"focuses on many existing opportunities that can be applied methodically through conventional breeding, without touching upon the latest discoveries such as the power of genomics to applied breeding in plant biology.

Written by a diversefaction of internationally famedscholars, this volume adds new horizons in the field of crop improvement, genetic engineering and abiotic stress tolerance. Comprehensive and lavishly illustrated, "Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume2"is a state-of-the-art guide to recent developmentsvis-a-visvarious aspects of plant responses in molecular and biochemical ways to create strong yields and overall crop improvement."

Abiotic stress cause changes in soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and is responsible for reduced yield in several major crops. Therefore, the subject of abiotic stress response in plants - metabolism, productivity and sustainability - is gaining considerable significance in the contemporary world. Abiotic stress is an integral part of "climate change," a complex phenomenon with a wide range of unpredictable impacts on the environment. Prolonged exposure to these abiotic stresses results in altered metabolism and damage to biomolecules. Plants evolve defense mechanisms to tolerate these stresses by upregulation of osmolytes, osmoprotectants, and enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants, etc. This volume deals with abiotic stress-induced morphological and anatomical changes, abberations in metabolism, strategies and approaches to increase salt tolerance, managing the drought stress, sustainable fruit production and postharvest stress treatments, role of glutathione reductase, flavonoids as antioxidants in plants, the role of salicylic acid and trehalose in plants, stress-induced flowering. The role of soil organic matter in mineral nutrition and fatty acid profile in response to heavy metal stress are also dealt with. Proteomic markers for oxidative stress as a new tools for reactive oxygen species and photosynthesis research, abscisic acid signaling in plants are covered with chosen examples. Stress responsive genes and gene products including expressed proteins that are implicated in conferring tolerance to the plant are presented. Thus, this volume would provides the reader with a wide spectrum of information including key references and with a large number of illustrations and tables. Dr. Parvaiz is Assistant Professor in Botany at A.S. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He has completed his post-graduation in Botany in 2000 from Jamia Hamdard New Delhi India. After his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India in 2007 he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. He has published more than 20 research papers in peer reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He has also edited a volume which is in press with Studium Press Pvt. India Ltd., New Delhi, India. Dr. Parvaiz is actively engaged in studying the molecular and physio-biochemical responses of different plants (mulberry, pea, Indian mustard) under environmental stress. Prof. M.N.V. Prasad is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad, India. He received B.Sc. (1973) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees from Andhra University, India, and the Ph.D. degree (1979) in botany from the University of Lucknow, India. Prasad has published 216 articles in peer reviewed journals and 82 book chapters and conference proceedings in the broad area of environmental botany and heavy metal stress in plants. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor for eight books. He is the recipient of Pitamber Pant National Environment Fellowship of 2007 awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

The improvement of crop species has been a basic pursuit since cultivation began thousands of years ago. To feed an ever increasing world population will require a great increase in food production. Wheat, corn, rice, potato and few others are expected to lead as the most important crops in the world. Enormous efforts are made all over the world to document as well as use these resources. Everybody knows that the introgression of genes in wheat provided the foundation for the "Green Revolution". Later also demonstrated the great impact that genetic resources have on production. Several factors are contributing to high plant performance under different environmental conditions, therefore an effective and complementary use of all available technological tools and resources is needed to meet the challenge.

Climate change is a complex phenomenon with a wide range of impacts on the environment. Biotic and abiotic stress are a result of climate change. Abiotic stress is caused by primary and secondary stresses which are an impediment to plant productivity. Prolonged exposure to these stresses results in altered metabolism and damage to biomolecules. Plants evolve defense mechanisms to withstand these stresses, e.g. synthesis of osmolytes, osmoprotectants, and antioxidants. Stress responsive genes and gene products including expressed proteins are implicated in conferring tolerance to the plant. This volume will provide the reader with a wide spectrum of information, including vital references. It also provides information as to how phytoconstituents, hormones and plant associated microbes help the plants to tolerate the stress. This volume also highlights the use of plant resources for ameliorating soil contaminants such as heavy metals. Dr. Parvaiz is Assistant professor in Botany at A.S. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He has completed his post-graduation in Botany in 2000 from Jamia Hamdard New Delhi India. After his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India in 2007 he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. He has published more than 20 research papers in peer reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He has also edited a volume which is in press with Studium Press Pvt. India Ltd., New Delhi, India. Dr. Parvaiz is actively engaged in studying the molecular and physio-biochemical responses of different plants (mulberry, pea, Indian mustard) under environmental stress. Prof. M.N.V. Prasad is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad, India. He received B.Sc. (1973) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees from Andhra University, India, and the Ph.D. degree (1979) in botany from the University of Lucknow, India. Prasad had published 216 articles in peer reviewed journals and 82 book chapters and conference proceedings in the broad area of environmental botany and heavy metal stress in plants. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor for eight books. He is the recipient of Pitamber Pant national Environment Fellowship of 2007 awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Environmental conditions and changes, irrespective of source, cause a variety of stresses, one of the most prevalent of which is salt stress. Excess amount of salt in the soil adversely affects plant growth and development, and impairs production. Nearly 20% of the world's cultivated area and nearly half of the world's irrigated lands are affected by salinity. Processes such as seed germination, seedling growth and vigour, vegetative growth, flowering and fruit set are adversely affected by high salt concentration, ultimately causing diminished economic yield and also quality of produce. Most plants cannot tolerate salt-stress. High salt concentrations decrease the osmotic potential of soil solution, creating a water stress in plants and severe ion toxicity. The interactions of salts with mineral nutrition may result in nutrient imbalances and deficiencies. The consequence of all these can ultimately lead to plant death as a result of growth arrest and molecular damage. To achieve salt-tolerance, the foremost task is either to prevent or alleviate the damage, or to re-establish homeostatic conditions in the new stressful environment. Barring a few exceptions, the conventional breeding techniques have been unsuccessful in transferring the salt-tolerance trait to the target species. A host of genes encoding different structural and regulatory proteins have been used over the past 5-6 years for the development of a range of abiotic stress-tolerant plants. It has been shown that using regulatory genes is a more effective approach for developing stress-tolerant plants. Thus, understanding the molecular basis will be helpful in developing selection strategies for improving salinity tolerance. This book will shed light on the effect of salt stress on plants development, proteomics, genomics, genetic engineering, and plant adaptations, among other topics. The book will cover around 25 chapters with contributors from all over the world.

Despite major advances in healthcare over the past century, the successful treatment of cancer has remained a significant challenge, and cancers are the second leading cause of death worldwide behind cardiovascular disease. Early detection and survival are important issues to control cancer. The development of quantitative methods and computer technology has facilitated the formation of new models in medical and biological sciences. The application of mathematical modelling in solving many real-world problems in medicine and biology has yielded fruitful results. In spite of advancements in instrumentations technology and biomedical equipment, it is not always possible to perform experiments in medicine and biology for various reasons. Thus, mathematical modelling and simulation are viewed as viable alternatives in such situations, and are discussed in this book. The conventional diagnostic techniques of cancer are not always effective as they rely on the physical and morphological appearance of the tumour. Early stage prediction and diagnosis is very difficult with conventional techniques. It is well known that cancers are involved in genome level changes. As of now, the prognosis of various types of cancer depends upon findings related to the data generated through different experiments. Several machine learning techniques exist in analysing the data of expressed genes; however, the recent results related with deep learning algorithms are more accurate and accommodative, as they are effective in selecting and classifying informative genes. This book explores the probabilistic computational deep learning model for cancer classification and prediction.

This book looks at the emerging power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region and locates India and its interests within the overarching geostrategic framework. With US and China emerging as leading players within the region, the book analyses the challenges to India's foreign policy in the face of new alliances, counter-alliances, and great power equations that have formed after the Cold War. It discusses important issues such as China's strategic forays in the Indian Ocean, the balance of power between countries, India's Act East opportunities, Russia's re-engagement in the region, the South China Sea dispute, India's maritime strategy, and the conundrum of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue facing India. A comprehensive study of the changing geopolitical and geostrategic environment of the Indo-Pacific region, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of international relations, global politics, foreign policy, maritime studies, Chinese studies, South Asian studies, geopolitics, and strategic studies.

The global population is growing at an alarming rate and is anticipated to reach about9.6billion bythe endof 2050. Addressing the problem of food scarcity for budding population vis-a-vis environmental changes is the main challenge plant biologists face in the contemporary era. Plant growth and productivity are scarce in many areas of the world due to a wide range of environmental stresses. The productive land is dwindling progressively by various natural and anthropogenic means that lead to enormous crop losses worldwide. Plants often experience these stresses and have the ability to withstand them. However, when the stress exceeds the normal tolerance level, plants accumulate organic osmolytes, osmoprotectants, cryoprotectants and antioxidant enzymes, which helps them tolerate these stresses and assist in their acclimatization towards the particular ambiance needed for maintaining their growth and development.

""

"Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants Under Changing Environment, Volume 1" discuss drought and temperature stresses and their mitigation through different means. This volume illuminates how plants that are bombarded by diverse and changing environmental stimuli, undergo appropriate physiological alterations that enable their survival. The information covered in the book is also useful in building apposite strategies to counter abiotic and biotic stresses inplants. Written by a diverse group of internationally renowned scholars, "Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants Under Changing Environment, Volume 1 "is a concise yet comprehensive resource that will be beneficial for the researchers, students, environmentalists and soil scientists of this field.

"

Improving Stress Resilience in Plants: Physiological and Biochemical Basis and Utilization in Breeding addresses the urgent need for improved understanding of major plant stress tolerance mechanisms, the identification of the genes, and gene products that are key to improving those mechanisms and means of optimizing those genes through molecular approaches. With a focus on plant physiological and biochemical attributes at both cellular and whole plant levels, this book includes the latest information on crosstalk between the various signaling molecules and quantitative trait locus (QTL). Further, it explores the extension of these mechanisms to breeding approaches, confirming overall understanding and inspiring further research. Written by a team of global experts, and presented in three thematic sections, the book provides insights into physical adaptations, metabolism and pathways, and breeding techniques including CRISPR and conventional approaches to reduce the negative effects of stresses and improve crop yield even under stress conditions. It is an ideal resource for researchers, academics and advanced students seeking to improve stress tolerance among crop plants and developing key future strategies for sustainable food production.

In the present era, rapid industrialization and urbanization has resulted in unwanted physiological, chemical, and biological changes in the environment that have harmful effects on crop quality and productivity. This situation is further worsened by the growing demand for food due to an ever increasing population. This forces plant scientists and agronomists to look forward for alternative strategies to enhance crop production and produce safer, healthier foods. Biotic and abiotic stresses are major constraints to crop productivity and have become an important challenge to agricultural scientists and agronomists due to the fact that both stress factors considerably reduce agriculture production worldwide per year. Silicon has various effects on plant growth and development, as well as crop yields. It increases photosynthetic activity, creates better disease resistance, reduces heavy metal toxicity, improves nutrient imbalance, and enhances drought tolerance. Silicon in Plants: Advances and Future Prospects presents the beneficial effects of silicon in improving productivity in plants and enhancing the capacity of plants to resist stresses from environmental factors. It compiles recent advances made worldwide in different leading laboratories concerning the role of silicon in plant biology in order to make these outcomes easily accessible to academicians, researchers, industrialists, and students. Nineteen chapters summarize information regarding the role of silicon in plants, their growth and development, physiological and molecular responses, and responses against the various abiotic stresses.

Current trends in population growth hint that global food production is unlikely to gratify future demands under predicted climate change scenarios unless the rates of crop improvement are accelerated. Crop production faces numerous challenges, due to changing environmental conditions and evolving needs for new plant-derived materials. These challenges come at a time when the plant sciences are witnessing remarkable progress in understanding fundamental processes of plant growth and development. Drought, heat, cold and salinity are among the major abiotic stresses that often cause a series of morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular alterations which adversely affect plant growth, development andproductivity, consequently posing a serious challenge for sustainable food production in large parts of the world, particularly in emerging countries. This emphasizes the urgency of finding better ways to translate new advances in plant science into concrete successes in agricultural production. To overcome the pessimistic influence of abiotic stresses and to maintain the food security in the face of these challenges, new, improved and tolerant crop varieties, contemporary breeding techniques, and cavernous understanding of the mechanisms that counteract detrimental climate changes are indubitably needed to sustain the requisite food supply. In this context, "Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume 1 "provides a state-of-the-art guide to recent developments that aid in the understanding of plant responses to abiotic stresses and lead to new horizons vis-a-vis prime strategies for translating current researchinto applied solutions to create strong yields and overall crop improvement under such unfavourable environments.

Written by a diversegroup of internationally famed scholars, "Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume 1" is a brief yet all-inclusive resource that is immensely advantageous for researchers, students, environmentalists, soil scientists, professionals, and many others in the quest of advancement in this flourishing field of research."

Abiotic stress cause changes in soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and is responsible for reduced yield in several major crops. Therefore, the subject of abiotic stress response in plants - metabolism, productivity and sustainability - is gaining considerable significance in the contemporary world. Abiotic stress is an integral part of "climate change," a complex phenomenon with a wide range of unpredictable impacts on the environment. Prolonged exposure to these abiotic stresses results in altered metabolism and damage to biomolecules. Plants evolve defense mechanisms to tolerate these stresses by upregulation of osmolytes, osmoprotectants, and enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants, etc. This volume deals with abiotic stress-induced morphological and anatomical changes, abberations in metabolism, strategies and approaches to increase salt tolerance, managing the drought stress, sustainable fruit production and postharvest stress treatments, role of glutathione reductase, flavonoids as antioxidants in plants, the role of salicylic acid and trehalose in plants, stress-induced flowering. The role of soil organic matter in mineral nutrition and fatty acid profile in response to heavy metal stress are also dealt with. Proteomic markers for oxidative stress as a new tools for reactive oxygen species and photosynthesis research, abscisic acid signaling in plants are covered with chosen examples. Stress responsive genes and gene products including expressed proteins that are implicated in conferring tolerance to the plant are presented. Thus, this volume would provides the reader with a wide spectrum of information including key references and with a large number of illustrations and tables. Dr. Parvaiz is Assistant Professor in Botany at A.S. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He has completed his post-graduation in Botany in 2000 from Jamia Hamdard New Delhi India. After his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India in 2007 he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. He has published more than 20 research papers in peer reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He has also edited a volume which is in press with Studium Press Pvt. India Ltd., New Delhi, India. Dr. Parvaiz is actively engaged in studying the molecular and physio-biochemical responses of different plants (mulberry, pea, Indian mustard) under environmental stress. Prof. M.N.V. Prasad is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad, India. He received B.Sc. (1973) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees from Andhra University, India, and the Ph.D. degree (1979) in botany from the University of Lucknow, India. Prasad has published 216 articles in peer reviewed journals and 82 book chapters and conference proceedings in the broad area of environmental botany and heavy metal stress in plants. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor for eight books. He is the recipient of Pitamber Pant National Environment Fellowship of 2007 awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Proteostasis is central to the development of various human diseases caused due to excessive protein misfolding and the disregulation of the protein quality control system. In this book, respected researchers from many leading institutions contribute their insights on proteostasis maintenance. The coverage mainly focuses on the basics of maintaining proteostasis, the consequences of proteostatic system failure, and how chaperone systems constantly maintain proteostasis. In addition, the book presents in detail different treatment strategies for diseases caused by proteostatic system failure, as well as the inhibition of proteostatic failure using small molecule compounds. It examines advances in the modulation of proteopathies, providing a comprehensive source of key mechanistic insights on these diseases. As such, the book offers a valuable resource for beginners and more experienced investigators alike who are looking for detailed and reliable information on protein homeostasis, the diseases that can develop due to related imbalances and the essential role of molecular and chemical chaperones.

The improvement of crop species has been a basic pursuit since cultivation began thousands of years ago. To feed an ever increasing world population will require a great increase in food production. Wheat, corn, rice, potato and few others are expected to lead as the most important crops in the world. Enormous efforts are made all over the world to document as well as use these resources. Everybody knows that the introgression of genes in wheat provided the foundation for the "Green Revolution". Later also demonstrated the great impact that genetic resources have on production. Several factors are contributing to high plant performance under different environmental conditions, therefore an effective and complementary use of all available technological tools and resources is needed to meet the challenge.

Ecometabolomics: Metabolic Fluxes versus Environmental Stoichiometry focuses on the interaction between plants-particularly plants that have vigorous secondary metabolites-and the environment. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the responses of the metabolome of organisms to biotic and abiotic environmental changes. It includes an introduction to metabolomics, summaries of metabolomic techniques and applications, studies of stress in plants, and insights into challenges. This is a must-have reference for plant biologists, plant biochemists, plant ecologists and phytochemists researching the interface between plants and the environment using metabolomics.

Plant Metal Interaction: Emerging Remediation Techniques covers different heavy metals and their effect on soils and plants, along with the remediation techniques currently available. As cultivable land is declining day-by-day as a result of increased metals in our soil and water, there is an urgent need to remediate these effects. This multi-contributed book is divided into four sections covering the whole of plant metal interactions, including heavy metals, approaches to alleviate heavy metal stress, microbial approaches to remove heavy metals, and phytoremediation.

Nanomaterials in Plants, Algae and Microorganisms: Concepts and Controversies: Volume 2 not only covers all the new technologies used in the synthesis of nanoparticles, it also tests their response on plants, algae and micro-organisms in aquatic ecosystems. Unlike most works in the field, the book doesn't focus exclusively on the higher organisms. Instead, it explores the smaller life forms on which they feed. Topics include the impacts of plant development, how different nanoparticles are absorbed by biota, the impact different metals-including silver and rare earth metals-have on living organisms, and the effects nanoparticles have on aquatic ecosystems as a whole. As nanotechnology based products have become a trillion-dollar industry, there is a need to understand the implications to the health of our biota and ecosystems as the earth is increasingly inundated with these materials.

The global population is growing at an alarming rate and is anticipated to reach about 9.6 billion by the end of 2050. Addressing the problem of food scarcity for budding population vis-a-vis environmental changes is the main challenge plant biologists face in the contemporary era. Plant growth and productivity are scarce in many areas of the world due to a wide range of environmental stresses. The productive land is dwindling progressively by various natural and anthropogenic means that lead to enormous crop losses worldwide. Plants often experience these stresses and have the ability to withstand them. However, when the stress exceeds the normal tolerance level, plants accumulate organic osmolytes, osmoprotectants, cryoprotectants and antioxidant enzymes, which helps them tolerate these stresses and assist in their acclimatization towards the particular ambiance needed for maintaining their growth and development. Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants Under Changing Environment, Volume 1 discuss drought and temperature stresses and their mitigation through different means. This volume illuminates how plants that are bombarded by diverse and changing environmental stimuli, undergo appropriate physiological alterations that enable their survival. The information covered in the book is also useful in building apposite strategies to counter abiotic and biotic stresses in plants. Written by a diverse group of internationally renowned scholars, Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants Under Changing Environment, Volume 1 is a concise yet comprehensive resource that will be beneficial for the researchers, students, environmentalists and soil scientists of this field.

Current trends in population growth hint that global food production is unlikely to gratify future demands under predicted climate change scenarios unless the rates of crop improvement are accelerated. Crop production faces numerous challenges, due to changing environmental conditions and evolving needs for new plant-derived materials. These challenges come at a time when the plant sciences are witnessing remarkable progress in understanding fundamental processes of plant growth and development. Drought, heat, cold and salinity are among the major abiotic stresses that often cause a series of morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular alterations which adversely affect plant growth, development and productivity, consequently posing a serious challenge for sustainable food production in large parts of the world, particularly in emerging countries. This emphasizes the urgency of finding better ways to translate new advances in plant science into concrete successes in agricultural production. To overcome the pessimistic influence of abiotic stresses and to maintain the food security in the face of these challenges, new, improved and tolerant crop varieties, contemporary breeding techniques, and cavernous understanding of the mechanisms that counteract detrimental climate changes are indubitably needed to sustain the requisite food supply. In this context, Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume 1 provides a state-of-the-art guide to recent developments that aid in the understanding of plant responses to abiotic stresses and lead to new horizons vis-a-vis prime strategies for translating current research into applied solutions to create strong yields and overall crop improvement under such unfavourable environments. Written by a diverse group of internationally famed scholars, Improvement of Crops in the Era of Climatic Changes, Volume 1 is a brief yet all-inclusive resource that is immensely advantageous for researchers, students, environmentalists, soil scientists, professionals, and many others in the quest of advancement in this flourishing field of research.

Plant Metabolites and Regulation Under Environmental Stress presents the latest research on both primary and secondary metabolites. The book sheds light on the metabolic pathways of primary and secondary metabolites, the role of these metabolites in plants, and the environmental impact on the regulation of these metabolites. Users will find a comprehensive, practical reference that aids researchers in their understanding of the role of plant metabolites in stress tolerance.

Climate change is a complex phenomenon with a wide range of impacts on the environment. Biotic and abiotic stress are a result of climate change. Abiotic stress is caused by primary and secondary stresses which are an impediment to plant productivity. Prolonged exposure to these stresses results in altered metabolism and damage to biomolecules. Plants evolve defense mechanisms to withstand these stresses, e.g. synthesis of osmolytes, osmoprotectants, and antioxidants. Stress responsive genes and gene products including expressed proteins are implicated in conferring tolerance to the plant. This volume will provide the reader with a wide spectrum of information, including vital references. It also provides information as to how phytoconstituents, hormones and plant associated microbes help the plants to tolerate the stress. This volume also highlights the use of plant resources for ameliorating soil contaminants such as heavy metals. Dr. Parvaiz is Assistant professor in Botany at A.S. College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. He has completed his post-graduation in Botany in 2000 from Jamia Hamdard New Delhi India. After his Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India in 2007 he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi. He has published more than 20 research papers in peer reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He has also edited a volume which is in press with Studium Press Pvt. India Ltd., New Delhi, India. Dr. Parvaiz is actively engaged in studying the molecular and physio-biochemical responses of different plants (mulberry, pea, Indian mustard) under environmental stress. Prof. M.N.V. Prasad is a Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Hyderabad, India. He received B.Sc. (1973) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees from Andhra University, India, and the Ph.D. degree (1979) in botany from the University of Lucknow, India. Prasad had published 216 articles in peer reviewed journals and 82 book chapters and conference proceedings in the broad area of environmental botany and heavy metal stress in plants. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor for eight books. He is the recipient of Pitamber Pant national Environment Fellowship of 2007 awarded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Abiotic stress has a detrimental impact on the living organisms in a specific environment and constitutes a major constraint to global agricultural production. The adverse environmental conditions that plants encounter during their life cycle not only disturb their metabolic reactions, but also hamper their growth and development on cellular and whole plant levels. These conditions are of great concern, particularly for those countries whose economies primarily rely on agriculture. Under abiotic stresses, plants amalgamate multiple external stress cues to bring about a coordinated response and establish mechanisms to mitigate such stresses by triggering a cascade of events leading to enhanced tolerance. Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants under Changing Environment, Volume 2 displays the ways by which plants utilize and integrate many common signals and subsequent pathways to cope with less favourable environmental conditions. The book also describes the use of contemporary tools for the improvement of plants under such stressed environments. Concise yet comprehensive, Physiological Mechanisms and Adaptation Strategies in Plants under Changing Environment, Volume 2 is an indispensable resource for researchers, students, environmentalists and many others in this burgeoning area of research.