ABSTRACT
Recent trends in rapid climate change greatly affect plant physiological processes and their distribution, owing to their interaction with different ecological factors and changing environment, especially tropical regions. Tropical regions are considered to be one of the most productive regions in terms of their biodiversity and thus is hampered most due to climate change. Environmental factors are crucial in molding the physiology of plants that eventually influence the way an ecosystem functions. Due to the dynamic nature of interactions of plants with the environment, it is often difficult to characterize them. The study of these complex interactions utilizes a host of advanced techniques. The recent advancements in next-generation techniques—such as metabolomics and proteomics—have led to an enhanced understanding of the physiological basis of various plant physiological processes such as plant responses to different stresses, photosynthesis, respiration and plant–water relations. Next-generation techniques are less labor-intensive and more cost-effective as compared to conventional techniques which are more laborious and time-consuming. Structure–Activity Relationship (SAR) and Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationship (QSAR) studies which are widely used in computer-aided drug designing are being used as a tool in the natural sciences for learning the behavior of biological systems, as physiological function is related to the chemical nature of compounds. All these techniques integrate different disciplines of plant sciences to understand the impact of the environment on the plant physiological processes and their survival, productivity and distribution, and the abundance of different tropical plant species in changing climates. This chapter presents an overview of instrumentation and general workflow used by plant physiologists in the light of recently published research along with the outcome of these studies.
