Drought Adaptation Strategies of Weeds and other Neglected Plants of Arid Environments
Drought is the major limitation to the productivity of plants and an upcoming global threat. Many weeds, minor crops and other plants thriving in arid environments have evolved several mechanisms of drought escape, tolerance and avoidance. Consequently, the careful observation of the adaptive mechanisms of some of these wild or cultivated species could offer new choices in the exploitation of poor, arid regions, and important alternatives toward the development of drought adaptive crop strategies. Therefore, the information concerning their high competitiveness, proliferation and survival under water deficit conditions are urgently needed. In this paper we present and classify some outstanding cases of drought adaptive weeds and other neglected plants, which could be potentially useful in the future. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________