[Paul Verslues] Major challenges in plant stress research and mitigating climate change impacts on plants.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of environmental stress that limit crop productivity and disrupt plant ecosystems.  These stresses include drought, heat, and soil salinization.  Plant science will increasing be called upon to help respond to the challenges of climate change.  Paul Verslues recently coordinated an article describing major unknowns and challenges in plant abiotic stress research as envisioned by 15 internationally prominent research groups (https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac263).  Dr. Verslues also worked with Thomas Juenger (University of Texas, Austin) to prepare a commentary article describing the importance of using water potential to quantitate drought stress severity and allow better data integration across laboratories and across different types of drought experiments (https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koac324).  Such data integration will be crucial for generating new insights to improve plant productivity and drought resistance.  Both of these articles will appear in an upcoming Plant Cell focus issue on Climate Change and Abiotic Stress which was co-edited by Dr. Verslues.