Osmotic Adjustment in Plant Cells Exposed to Drought and Temperature Stress: Can a Cause and Effect Hypothesis be Formulated and Tested?

The study of plant response to environmental stresses has developed rapidly during the past several decades. Attention has increasingly been devoted to the biochemical, biophysical, and physiological processes involved in the changes in solute concentration and content of cells which occur in response to changes in the external water potential. One aspect of these changes is osmotic adjustment.