Vol. 7, Issue 1 (2018)

Author(s):
Amit Kumar Singh, Maneesh Kumar Singh, Vineet Singh and Tushar Raghuvanshi

Abstract:
There are so many symptoms or indications exposed by plants to heat stress. High temperature stress indicators are signs of disturbance, either as visible, growth or morphological modification or invisible, physiological or biochemical changes that relate to repair and resistance mechanisms. Evaluating physiological and cellular parameters for assessing the severity of stress injury or level of heat stress tolerance is not always trivial. The current chapter reviews the methodology and principles of several major physiological and biochemical indicators commonly used to evaluate heat stress tolerance or injury: photosynthesis, water relations, cell membrane stability (CMS), lipid peroxidation, and stress-induced proteins. Multiple morphological, physiological and biochemical changes may occur simultaneously in response to heat stress, and sometimes are difficult to distinguish from one another. Each indicator is discussed independently in this chapter.