Mechanisms of drought tolerance in legumes: physiological impacts, adaptive responses, and phenotyping strategies.

Abstract

Drought is recognized as the primary abiotic stress limiting global crop productivity and poses a significant threat to food security. Consequently, the genetic improvement of drought tolerance has become a priority for modern plant breeding. Developing resilient cultivars requires a fundamental understanding of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms that plants employ to counteract water deficits. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of drought-induced effects across various developmental stages in legumes, detailing the signaling networks that facilitate stress perception and response. Furthermore, we evaluate the experimental parameters and methodologies frequently used to assess drought tolerance, weighing their respective advantages and limitations. Finally, we analyze the revolutionary role that high-throughput phenotyping could play in stress assessment and precision breeding.

Code and data availability

This is a review article on drought tolerance mechanisms in legumes. The supplied blocks contain no public phenotype datasets, plant images/sensor data, author analysis code, trained models, or supplements with such assets; only literature citations, tables of QTLs/yield losses compiled from prior studies, and site导航/占

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