• Climate change‐driven extreme weather events, combined with increasing temperatures, harsh soil conditions, low water availability and quality, and the introduction of many man‐made pollutants, pose a unique challenge to plants. Although our knowledge of the response of plants to each of these individual conditions is vast, we know very little about how a combination of many of these factors, occurring simultaneously, that is multifactorial stress combination, impacts plants.
• Seedlings of wild‐type and different mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana plants were subjected to a multifactorial stress combination of six different stresses, each applied at a low level, and their survival, physiological and molecular responses determined.
• Our findings reveal that, while each of the different stresses, applied individually, had a negligible effect on plant growth and survival, the accumulated impact of multifactorial stress combination on plants was detrimental. We further show that the response of plants to multifactorial stress combination is unique and that specific pathways and processes play a critical role in the acclimation of plants to multifactorial stress combination.
• Taken together our findings reveal that further polluting our environment could result in higher complexities of multifactorial stress combinations that in turn could drive a critical decline in plant growth and survival.

中文翻译：

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多因素胁迫组合对植物生长和存活的影响

• 由气候变化驱动的极端天气事件，再加上气温升高，土壤条件恶劣，水供应量和质量低下以及许多人为污染物的引入，对植物构成了独特的挑战。尽管我们对植物对这些单个条件的反应的了解非常广泛，但我们对同时发生的许多这些因素的组合（即多因素胁迫组合）如何影响植物知之甚少。
• 对拟南芥野生型和不同突变体植物的幼苗进行六种不同胁迫的多因素胁迫组合，每种胁迫均以较低的水平施加，并确定它们的存活，生理和分子响应。
• 我们的发现表明，虽然单独施加每种不同的胁迫对植物的生长和存活的影响都可以忽略不计，但多因素胁迫组合对植物的累积影响却是有害的。我们进一步表明，植物对多因素胁迫组合的反应是独特的，并且特定的途径和过程在植物对多因素胁迫组合的适应中起着关键作用。
• 综上所述，我们的发现表明，进一步污染我们的环境可能导致多因素胁迫组合的更高复杂性，进而可能导致植物生长和存活的严重下降。