Publication:

Editorial: Drought stress in legumes

Plants are challenged by diverse environmental constraints, among which drought stress is increasingly important. Meteorological models predict an increase in the areas prone to drought in the future. Legumes are important sources of fiber, oils, and protein, constituting an essential amenity in the global economy. Additionally, legumes contribute to nitrogen input in the biosphere due to their ability to establish symbiotic interactions with diazotrophs, collectively named rhizobia. Therefore, efforts to decipher the molecular, metabolic, physiological, and agronomic responses are crucial contributing novel strategies to aid drought tolerance in legumes. This Research Topic contains articles either providing new findings or discussing the latest research concerning drought research in legumes, including one mini-review on soybean tolerance to drought (Arya et al.) and seven original research papers dealing with strategies to confer drought tolerance such as priming (Zhou et al.); studies on intraspecific variation in traits associated with drought tolerance (Prince et al.); the analysis of water use efficiency under terminal drought (Polania et al.); and the contribution of a legume dehydrin to drought tolerance (Sun et al.); the functional characterization of a LOX gene family (Mou et al.); the functional analysis of a soybean APETALA2/ETHYLENE RESPONSIVE FACTOR (AP2/ERF) (Wang et al.); and a study on AP2/ERF gene family in a tolerant desert legume (Zhao et al.).