Cultivation Practices and Abiotic Stress: Shaping Tree Growth and Physiology Across Seedlings to Ecosystems

Plants encounter dynamic environmental challenges that subject them to diverse abiotic stresses, including drought, flooding, extreme temperatures, and soil salinity. These stressors contribute to significant global production losses and elevated plant mortality. In response, plants adapt by modulating morphological traits and adjusting physiological processes. Recent advances have expanded our understanding of plant responses to both individual and combined abiotic stressors, revealing critical physiological mechanisms underpinning stress tolerance. This knowledge is essential for enhancing plant resilience, developing adaptive management strategies, and improving productivity in changing climate conditions.

Against this background, this research topic examines the intersection of cultivation practices and abiotic stress, exploring how management strategies influence tree growth, physiology, and adaptation across developmental stages from seedlings to ecosystem scales.

This Special Issue explores the synergistic interface between silviculture and abiotic stress physiology, highlighting how targeted cultivation practices—ranging from stand establishment to ecosystem management—can mitigate stress impacts and shape adaptive tree growth.

We invite original research articles and comprehensive reviews addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Physiological and molecular mechanisms of tree responses to single or combined abiotic stresses

• Impact of silvicultural practices (irrigation, fertilization, pruning, thinning) on stress resilience

• Trait plasticity and adaptation in trees under managed environments

• Stress memory, acclimation, and recovery dynamics across tree developmental stages

• Scaling physiological responses from individual trees to forest ecosystems

• Strategies to optimize cultivation practices for climate-resilient forestry

Article types and fees

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

• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• 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:

• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Abiotic Stress, Silviculture, Plant physiology, Drought, Climate change, Resilience, Physiological Scaling

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.