Growing on calcareous soils and facing climate change

This publication, co-written by researchers from LGDP (Perpignan) and IPSiM (Montpellier), reviews the strategies implemented by plants to tolerate calcareous soils, as well as the impact of climate change on calcareous soil tolerance. This review, to be published in the December issue of TIPS, will be the cover story of this issue.

Soil calcium carbonate (CaCO3) impacts plant mineral nutrition far beyond Fe metabolism, imposing constraints for crop growth and quality in calcareous agrosystems. Our knowledge on plant strategies to tolerate CaCO3 effects mainly refers to Fe acquisition.

This review provides an update on plant cellular and molecular mechanisms recently described to counteract the negative effects of CaCO3 in soils, as well as recent efforts to identify genetic bases involved in CaCO3 tolerance from natural populations, that could be exploited to breed CaCO3-tolerant crops.

Finally, we review the impact of environmental factors (soil water content, air CO2, and temperature) affecting soil CaCO3 equilibrium and plant tolerance to calcareous soils, and we propose strategies for improvement in the context of climate change.

See also

Growing on calcareous soils and facing climate change - Bontpart T, Weiss A, Gérard F, Vile D, Lacombe B, Reichheld JP, Mari S (2024). Trends in Plant Science, doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2024.03.013.