Is Nitrate Uptake and Assimilation Involved in Plant Response to Drought?

Water availability is one of the most important factors that affect abundance and productivity of plants (Boyer 1982). Recently drought seriously limits also agriculture and, hence, food production for increasing human population (Scanlan 2018). Sensitive regulation of plant transpiration rate is critically important for plant survival, namely under fluctuating soil water availability (SWA) (Kramer 1988). Signals that mediate information about changing water availability in soil and regulate stomatal aperture are still poorly understood. Presumably, signals generated in roots are systemically transported to shoots where they effect stomatal aperture, thus controlling water and carbon dioxide movement out of/into the plant, affecting plant growth and functioning in a way that reflects the availability of resources (Wilkinson and Davies 2002).
Detailed knowledge of mechanism regulating plant early response to drought is highly attractive not only for elucidating principal mechanisms behind plant-environment interactions, but also for their potential use in manipulations of crop response in agriculture. Thus, the projects aims to shine light into early events of stress communication.