Hi, to my opinion the main difference is that in nature many environmental factros act at once and thereby create a stressful situation, e.g. low water availability is often connected to high temperatures and high light, or cold is often connected with low light. In artificial systems (experiments) the operators often set one stressful factor and try to keep others in non-stressing range. Nevertheless, an artificial system might be a stressful situation, too, e.g. a potted plant has small rooting space compared to a plant in open soil.

Briefly, to my understanding. specific difference is that artificially applied abiotic stress is calibrated, known and applied at a specified time in plant's life cycle as compared to natural.

In controlled conditions environmental correlations are usually different than in the field as Marcus hinted above. As many responses interact, the response of a plant in a controlled environment will be different than in the field.

Each type of experiment has pros and cons. If the objective is to understand the molecular or physiological mechanisms, then using a controlled environment will be best. If the aim is to predict performance in the field, then a controlled environment will not provide information that is DIRECTLY useful.

One can interpret your question also in a different, more subtle way: you may be asking about the difference between natural and artificial stress, both in the field. My expectation is that the responses can differ, either because of methodological side-effects, or for the same reasons above: there are interactions among responses. Say you induce drought by excluding rain with a shelter: the first type of problem could be for example that the shelter absorbs some part of the solar spectrum, the second type of problem is that sheltered plants will be drought even if the PAR irradiance has been low because of cloudy and rainy weather, which could still lead to an "unnatural" response of the droughted plants because they have been subjected to an unrealistic combination of conditions. I am not aware of this having been explicitly tested, and testing for this type of effects would be in practice difficult. On the other many experiments like the one described have provided useful insights.

Yes I also endorse this

yes , there is clear cut difference. The naturally stressed plants for eg in drought stress, the plants have ability to adjust over the period of time by exploring soil water through deep root system etc. In artifically stresses plants, the stress symptoms are very rapid and may have less chance to adjust or over come stress. The results are to be carefully interpreted from both experiments.

Hi,

much (most!) has been said already, but I would stress the difficulty to reproduce natural stress dynamics and coordination. It is actuallly *very* difficult to grow plants in a realistic, artificial environment, and environmental variables (radiation, temperature, humidity) are correlated in a very different way in a growing chamber, respect to natural. Also, soil environment is *very* difficult to reproduce, and that means that dynamics of the stress cannot be easily compared to a natural one. Plant architectural/morphological and physiological adaptations are a major issue to understand, but they are difficult to catch during an artificial exposure to stress.

Kind regards, Andrea

Hello Everyone,

I am only a geochemist! I have nothing to add to your discussion.

All the best,

Nathalie