PHOTOSYNTHETICA

Photosynthetica 2025,63(4):359-373 | DOI: 10.32615/ps.2025.037

Recent advances in plant stress analysis using chlorophyll a fluorescence

K.W. CHANG^{1, 2}, H. TANG^{1, 2}, L.J. FU^{1, 2}, Q. XIA³, Z.Y. PAN^{1, 2}, J.L. TAN⁴, V. LYSENKO⁵, Y. GUO^{1, 2}

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Process Control for Light Industry, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

² International Joint Research Center for Intelligent Optical Sensing and Applications, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

³ School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Suzhou University of Technology, Suzhou, China

⁴ Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

⁵ Academy of Biology and Biotechnology, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Chlorophyll fluorescence (ChlF), a sensitive, real-time, and nondestructive indicator of photosynthesis, enables noninvasive elucidation of the complex physiological and biochemical processes of plants. It plays a unique and important role in plant research, ecological evaluation, and agriculture. To provide a holistic picture of research on ChlF applications over the past decade, a knowledge map was first conducted, which revealed six major areas of ChlF applications in plant stress evaluation and reduction, including drought stress, temperature stress, salt stress, water stress, toxicity stress, and nitrogen stress. This work then systematically summarized the literature in each of the six areas. Finally, we examined practical application bottlenecks and outlined key challenges and frontiers in future ChlF research.

Additional key words: chlorophyll fluorescence; knowledge mapping; noninvasive detection; photosynthesis; plant stresses.

Received: September 12, 2025; Revised: December 1, 2025; Accepted: December 15, 2025; Prepublished online: December 29, 2025; Published: December 31, 2025  Show citation