**Tahir Hussain Awan**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

plant abiotic stress areas.

**1. Introduction**

Perspective Chapter: Plant Abiotic

Stress Factors – Current Challenges

of Last Decades and Future Threats

All life forms, from the simplest to the most complicated, are inevitably exposed to altering environmental conditions in their natural habitats, gradually depending on their lifestyle. Unfavorable alterations drive these life forms either to avoidance or defense as a response. Most of the essential plant growth-promoting environmental factors can also turn out to be stress factors. Water as the most abundant molecule of all living cells can cause stress either in deficit as drought or in excess as waterlogging. Temperature is important for the maintenance of all biomolecules and metabolic reactions; hence, both low and high temperatures are deleterious stress factors. Even though the plants were exposed to various volcanic origin, heavy metals and pollutants and evolved molecular mechanisms during millions year of evolution, rapid urbanization, and industrial progress introduce brand new pollutants as micro- and nanoplastics as well as nanoparticles to plants like never before. This chapter defines and evaluates major environmental abiotic stress factors with an emphasis on the latest knowledge of molecular effects on plants. In addition, novel stress factors, such as nanoparticles and microplastics, are looked over as hot prospects for the future of

*Tamer Gümüş, Sinan Meriç, Alp Ayan and Çimen Atak*

**Keywords:** nanoparticles, microplastics, nanoplastics, abiotic stress tolerance

Environment as a term originated from the French word "environ" by the meaning of encompass or surround. In the early twentieth century, a biologist, Jacob van Erkul, pioneered the subject to describe all the physical, chemical, and biological factors, which comprise and interdependence with living organisms. In a healthy environment, all living organisms borrow basic necessities of life from nature and deposit waste and pollutants as by-products. However, this deposit is in a rate of recycling capacities of nature itself. Following the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, the transition from manufacturing methods based on hand production and manpower to fossil fuel-based steam power machine tools and mechanized factory production led to unprecedented use of natural sources and deposition of wastes and pollutants. Technological developments in textile manufacturing, iron industry, power production, chemicals, infrastructure, lighting,

Senior Scientist, Rice Research Institute, Kala Shah Kaku, Punjab, Pakistan

## **Masood Iqbal Awan**

Assistant Professor, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Sub-Campus Depalpur, Okara, Pakistan
