Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses and Global Climate Change

Catalog description

Abiotic stresses including drought, temperature extremes, flooding, salinity, and toxic metals limit crop productivity, particularly in developing countries where people are resource-poor and have limited options. Anticipated global climate changes are expected to exacerbate the impact of stresses even further. Therefore, knowledge of stress response mechanisms is urgently needed for developing novel molecular breeding and genomics approaches for generating plants and management systems that will improve performance in hostile environmental conditions. This course explores the molecular, physiological, developmental and morphological characteristics that plants use to adapt to environmental stresses. Emphases are placed on stresses associated with global climate change including drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, salt, and environmental pollution. The course will also discuss strategies for improving stress tolerance in crops. Graduate students will have assignments for in-depth learning of each topic. Examination questions will differ for graduate students to evaluate assigned material. Graduate students will write a paper for one of the topics and present it in class.