REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
This article is part of the Research TopicAbiotic Stress Combination: Improving Resilience to Develop Climate-Smart CropsView all 11 articles
Multiscale responses to combined drought and salinity stress in Apocynum: A model for climate-smart dryland restoration
Provisionally accepted
- Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Ürümqi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Climate change is intensifying the frequency and co-occurrence of abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity, posing serious challenges to crop productivity and ecosystem stability. Traditional research has largely focused on single-stress responses, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of plant resilience under combined and sequential stressors. Species of the genus Apocynum, particularly Apocynum venetum L. and Apocynum pictum Schrenk are naturally adapted to arid and saline environments and offer a valuable model for studying multistress tolerance in non-model species. This review integrates current insights into the morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses of Apocynum under concurrent drought and salinity conditions. Key mechanisms include osmotic adjustment, ion compartmentalization, antioxidant enzyme activation, and stress-induced gene expression involving heat shock transcription factors (HSFs), WRKY transcription factors, NAM, ATAF1/2, and CUC2 transcription factors (NAC), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades, and flavonoid biosynthesis genes such as Apocynum venetum flavanone 3-hydroxylase (AvF3H), flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase (AvF3'H), and flavonol synthase (AvFLS). Additionally, the review highlights the emerging role of stress signaling molecules and phytohormones such as abscisic acid, salicylic acid, and methyl jasmonate in coordinating systemic responses to multiple stressors. Beyond stress resilience, Apocynum species provide ecological services including phytoremediation, carbon sequestration, sand dune stabilization, and microbial community restoration. These traits align closely with global restoration goals and support Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 13 (Climate Action) and 15 (Life on Land). Given their low-input cultivation requirements and multistress tolerance, Apocynum species hold promise as climate-smart crops for restoring productivity and resilience in degraded dryland systems. Positioning Apocynum as a dual-purpose species that delivers both ecological restoration and crop value can guide the integration of stress-adaptive plants into sustainable agricultural systems under a changing climate.
Keywords: Apocynum venetum, Apocynum pictum, abiotic stress, drought-salinity tolerance, drylandrestoration, sustainable agriculture, Halophytes
Received: 12 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shoukat, Jiang, Buttar and Tanveer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Li Jiang
Mohsin Tanveer
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.