A common effect of several abiotic stresses is to cause tissue dehydration. Such dehydration is caused by the imbalance between root water uptake and leaf transpiration. Under some specific stress conditions, regulation of root water uptake is more crucial to overcome stress injury than regulation of leaf transpiration. This review first describes present knowledge about how water is taken up by roots and then discusses how specific stress situations such as drought, salinity, low temperature, and flooding modify root water uptake. The rate of root water uptake of a given plant is the result of its root hydraulic characteristics, which are ultimately regulated by aquaporin activity and, to some extent, by suberin deposition. Present knowledge about the effects of different stresses on these features is also summarized. Finally, current findings regarding how molecular signals such as the plant hormones abscisic acid, ethylene, and salicylic acid, and how reactive oxygen species may modulate the final response of root water uptake under stress conditions are discussed.

Excessive salt accumulation in soils is a major ecological and agronomical problem, in particular in arid and semi-arid areas. Excessive soil salinity affects the establishment, development, and growth of plants, resulting in important losses in productivity. Plants have evolved biochemical and molecular mechanisms that may act in a concerted manner and constitute the integrated physiological response to soil salinity. These include the synthesis and accumulation of compatible solutes to avoid cell dehydration and maintain root water uptake, the regulation of ion homeostasis to control ion uptake by roots, compartmentation and transport into shoots, the fine regulation of water uptake and distribution to plant tissues by the action of aquaporins, the reduction of oxidative damage through improved antioxidant capacity and the maintenance of photosynthesis at values adequate for plant growth. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis can help the host plants to cope with the detrimental effects of high soil salinity. There is evidence that AM symbiosis affects and regulates several of the above mentioned mechanisms, but the molecular bases of such effects are almost completely unknown. This review summarizes current knowledge about the effects of AM symbiosis on these physiological mechanisms, emphasizing new perspectives and challenges in physiological and molecular studies on salt-stress alleviation by AM symbiosis.

This study investigated several aspects related to drought tolerance in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) soybean plants. The investigation included both shoot and root tissues in order to reveal the preferred target tissue for AM effects against drought stress. Non-AM and AM soybean plants were grown under well-watered or drought-stressed conditions, and leaf water status, solute accumulation, oxidative damage to lipids, and other parameters were determined. Results showed that AM plants were protected against drought, as shown by their significantly higher shoot-biomass production. The leaf water potential was also higher in stressed AM plants (−1.9 MPa) than in non-AM plants (−2.5 MPa). The AM roots had accumulated more proline than non-AM roots, while the opposite was observed in shoots. Lipid peroxides were 55% lower in shoots of droughted AM plants than in droughted non-AM plants. Since there was no correlation between the lower oxidative damage to lipids in AM plants and the activity of antioxidant enzymes, it seems that first the AM symbiosis enhanced osmotic adjustment in roots, which could contribute to maintaining a water potential gradient favourable to the water entrance from soil into the roots. This enabled higher leaf water potential in AM plants during drought and kept the plants protected against oxidative stress, and these cumulative effects increased the plant tolerance to drought.

• Here, we evaluated how the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis regulates root hydraulic properties and root plasma membrane aquaporins (PIP) under different stresses sharing a common osmotic component. • Phaseolus vulgaris plants were inoculated or not with the AM fungus Glomus intraradices, and subjected to drought, cold or salinity. Stress effects on root hydraulic conductance (L), PIP gene expression and protein abundance were evaluated. • Under control conditions, L in AM plants was about half that in nonAM plants. However, L was decreased as a result of the three stresses in nonAM plants, while it was almost unchanged in AM plants. At the same time, PIP2 protein abundance and phosphorylation state presented the same trend as L. Finally, the expression of each PIP gene responded differently to each stress and was dependent on the AM fungal presence. • Differential expression of the PIP genes studied under each stress depending on the AM fungal presence may indicate a specific function and regulation by the AM symbiosis of each gene under the specific conditions of each stress tested.