A brief description (approximately half a page) of my research activities and main topics

Over the last years, I have focused my research on understanding how plants respond to adverse environmental conditions, with particular emphasis on citrus physiology. My early work addressed plant responses to individual abiotic stresses, including drought, salinity, substrate flooding, and extreme temperatures. This research has progressively evolved towards the study of more complex and realistic stress scenarios, where high temperature interacts with additional abiotic factors such as water deficit, high light intensity, or nutritional imbalance. In parallel, I have also investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying plant stress adaptation, often using model plants to gain deeper mechanistic insight. A distinctive feature of my work is its applied orientation. Beyond describing stress responses, I aim to identify physiological, biochemical, hormonal, and molecular markers of tolerance and to develop agronomic or biotechnological strategies capable of mitigating stress-induced damage in crops.

Brief description of the talk

The talk will explore how citrus plants respond to increasingly complex climate-related stress scenarios, including heat, high light intensity, drought and nutritional imbalance. Moving beyond the classical study of individual stresses, the talk will focus on the concept of combined and multifactorial stress as a more realistic framework for understanding citrus performance under field conditions. Special attention will be given to physiological, hormonal and metabolic, highlighting the role of photosynthesis, oxidative damage, phytohormone regulation, proline metabolism and nutrient status in stress tolerance. The presentation will also discuss emerging biotechnological and agronomic strategies to enhance citrus resilience, including kaolin-based photoprotection, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, and encapsulated proline formulations. Overall, the talk aims to connect fundamental plant physiology with applied solutions for developing more resilient and sustainable citrus production systems under climate change.