Vital stress in animals and plants

Only rarely are the conditions of the outer world in harmony with our inner requirements. The tension between environment and internal homeostasis is known as stress, and the ability to cope with this dissonance has decided the survival of life on our planet from its very beginning. This is even more valid if one considers that homeostasis, by its very nature, is a cybernetic process and not a static condition. Even under “normal” conditions the changes inflicted by ongoing development mean that the actual situation deviates from equilibrium. The ability to efficiently sense such deviations and deploy adaptive responses culminating in a new homeostasis has been a central strategy for stress resilience. Thus, even under healthy conditions, organisms continuously oscillate around their ideal state, they never rest. These small deviations are not only tolerated; they even are required for health, a phenomenon termed as eustress (Selye 1973). Only, when the challenges exhaust the adaptive abilities of the organism, such that it fails to establish a new dynamic equilibrium, stress becomes destructive (distress in senso Seyle, 1973). The regulation of cell division, probably the most evident manifestation of life activity, can serve as a paradigm illustrating the importance of eustress. ... mehrIn many eukaryotic organisms, the progression through the cell cycle is linked to specific stress responses, not negatively, but positively. Two contributions to the current issue, one from animals, and one from plants, address different facets of this vital stress form.