Nurturing Resilience in Fruit Trees: Physiological and Molecular Mechanisms of Biotic and Abiotic Stress

Fruit trees thrive in dynamic environments that can often be unfavorable, affecting their yield and quality. These adverse conditions include biotic stresses such as a variety of pathogens and pests, and abiotic stresses like drought, waterlogging, extreme temperatures, nutrient deficiencies, and soil contamination, with salts or toxic metals. In addition, urbanization, industrialization, and the frequent occurrence of extreme weather caused by climate change exacerbate these stressors. In response, fruit trees undergo specific changes in transcription, metabolism, and physiology.

Understanding the mechanisms underpinning these changes is key to improving resilience in fruit trees for sustainable fruit production through breeding and orchard management. Generally, studying these mechanisms remains challenging due to the perennial nature, complex genetics and long growth cycles of fruit trees. However, advancements in whole genome sequencing, gene editing, and omics have provided powerful tools to investigate transcriptional, metabolic, and physiological mechanisms of stress responses in fruit trees. With more data being generated and published, the physiological and molecular mechanisms/pathways of fruit trees' responses to biotic and abiotic stress are gradually being revealed.

This Research Topic aims to publish recent data in this area to enhance our understanding of these mechanisms. These new data include but are not limited to:
• Evaluation and identification of stress-resistant traits in fruit tree germplasm.
• Discovery of key loci/genes/non-coding RNAs associated with stress resistance in fruit trees.
• Molecular basis of fruit tree response to stress signals.
• Studies on fruit tree stress-related omics (transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, etc.).
• Application of modern breeding techniques in the innovation of stress-resistant fruit tree germplasm.

Please note: Descriptive data reports of treatment comparison will not be considered for review unless accompanied by functional validation and providing novel insights into the mechanistic understanding of the field.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: fruit trees, stress resistance, omics technologies, abiotic stress, biotic stress

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.