Abstract
Plants are exposed to a wide range of temperatures during their life
cycle and need to continuously adapt. These adaptations need to deal
with temperature changes on a daily and seasonal level and with
temperatures affected by climate change, and need to take into account
that different organs have different optimal temperature ranges.
Increasing global temperatures impact crop performance, and several
physiological and developmental responses to increased temperature have
been described that allow to mitigate this. In this review, we assess
various developmental, physiological and biochemical responses of crops
to high temperature, focusing on knowledge gained from both monocots
(e.g. wheat, barley, maize, rice) and dicots (e.g. soybean or tomato).
We outline several outstanding questions where crop research can exploit
knowledge from model plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, and we
highlight that studying molecular mechanisms directly in relevant crops
is essential.