Salt Stress—Regulation of Root Water Uptake in a Whole-Plant and Diurnal Context

Abstract

This review focuses on the regulation of root water uptake in plants which are exposed to salt stress. Root water uptake is not considered in isolation but is viewed in the context of other potential tolerance mechanisms of plants—tolerance mechanisms which relate to water relations and gas exchange. Plants spend between one third and half of their lives in the dark, and salt stress does not stop with sunset, nor does it start with sunrise. Surprisingly, how plants deal with salt stress during the dark has received hardly any attention, yet any growth response to salt stress over days, weeks, months and years is the integrative result of how plants perform during numerous, consecutive day/night cycles. As we will show, dealing with salt stress during the night is a prerequisite to coping with salt stress during the day. We hope to highlight with this review not so much what we know, but what we do not know; and this relates often to some rather basic questions.