ABSTRACT
In the future, crop adaptations under changing climatic conditions will determine food security due to the expected increase in temperature and in the frequency of extreme events. In this regard, an understanding of physiological and phenological responses by crop plants at molecular levels (transcriptomic, metabolomic and proteomic) would be the first step. Briefly, various crop plants have undergone some physiological changes like damage to the thylakoid membrane resulting in the loss of chloroplast, and loss of membrane integrity due to changes in the composition of membrane lipids. Similarly, different enzyme activities have also been found to decrease under elevated temperature conditions. Regarding phenological changes, elevated temperature has very drastic effects like shortening the grain filling duration, enhancing the depth of dormancy and bud break, which resulted in delayed growth cessation and bud set. The research gaps have been identified, which need to be accomplished in future studies in order to get a complete understanding of the subject matter and to manipulate accordingly. A complete understanding of responsible mechanisms would ultimately lead us to a biotechnological or genetic solution for increased tolerance of elevated temperature in crop plants. In this chapter, we have comprehensively and critically analyzed the above-mentioned response mechanisms of crop plants under elevated temperature.
