Responses of Plants to Soil Flooding

In this book, leading researchers from this field systematically explain the latest research results on anaerobic responses in plants. The book is characterized by its in-depth coverage of the tolerance functions of plants under hypoxic conditions from a variety of perspectives, with a particular focus on research areas related to molecular biology and genetics. Although drought responses have dominated water stress research in the past, recent floods and attempts to introduce new cropping systems have made it necessary to take measures against excessive water stress injury, and systematic research is needed for this purpose. From this point of view, the approach taken in this book is new and interesting in that it covers basic research and adaptation technologies in the field, and can be applied to various different situations. The focus of this book is how plants can adapt to poor environments and improve productivity under the conditions of soil hypoxia caused by excess water, such as heavy rains and typhoons. From this point of view, the reader will be able to understand the various adaptations of plants to climate change, which will clarify the future directions of research and show the possibility of applying the knowledge and techniques gained in this book to the field.

The Sixth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021) warns that global warming will proceed faster than previously assumed and that all regions of the world will face increasing changes. ＂Climate Resilient Development＂ has been proposed as a key phrase to combat global warming, and it is important to identify the adaptive capacity of plants and improve it where possible. In this regard, the publication of this book, which includes ideas for mitigating flood damage caused by global warming, is extremely important, timely, and rational.

Jun-Ichi Sakagami was born in Osaka, Japan in 1963. Currently, he is a Professor of Tropical Crop Science at the Kagoshima University, Kagoshima since 2013. He obtained his Ph.D from the Chiba University, in 1999. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, France (1999-2000). In 2002, Sakagami worked the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), as a Senior Scientist and the Project Leader of its Crop Livestock and Environment division. During his work at JIRCAS, he has presided over collaborative research for sustainable crop production at the Guinean Institute for Agricultural Research, Conakry, Guinea (2004-2007) and the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, Tamale, Ghana (2009-2013). Sakagami is the secretary of the Asian Crop Science Association starting in 2021.

Sakagami’s research interests focus on physiological mechanism of abiotic stresses in plants. Among them, he worked especially on the physiological and morphological responses to excess water, the so-called hypoxic stress. He was also involved in the development of seed priming memory under poor environmental conditions. Recently, he has been working on the effective utilization and sustainable production system of perennial crops.

Mikio Nakazono was born in Miyazaki, Japan in 1967. Currently, he is a Professor of Plant Genetic and Breeding Science at Nagoya University (Nagoya U.), Aichi. After completion of his Ph.D at the University of Tokyo (U. Tokyo) in 1995, he started working as an Assistant Professor at U. Tokyo. When he was the Assistant Professor, he conducted research as a visiting scientist at Iowa State University, USA for 1 year (2001-2002). He was promoted to an Associate Professor at U. Tokyo in 2003, and moved to Nagoya U. as a Professor in 2010. He has also been an Adjunct Professor of School of Agriculture and Environment, the University of Western Australia, since July 2016.

He has studied molecular mechanisms of plant response and adaptation to abiotic stresses (especially flooding stress) for 25 years. He was also one of the scientists who established the method of Laser Microdissection (LM) in plant biology. He has contributed to the wider adoption of this technology in the world, and thus he has collaborations with many plant biologists on cell-type or tissue-type specific gene expression analyses using LM.