The role of invasive plant species in drought resilience in agriculture: the case of sweet briar (Rosa rubiginosa L.).

This article focuses on the high adaptation potential of sweet briar (Rosa rubiginosa), a wild rose species, to soil drought and its implications for plant breeding amid global climate change. Native to Europe and parts of Asia, North America, and North Africa, R. rubiginosa has become invasive in the southern hemisphere, where it thrives in dry, degraded habitats and acts as a pioneering nurse plant. The species exhibits physiological and molecular drought tolerance mechanisms including efficient water use, accumulation of soluble sugars and intercellular CO₂, stomatal closure, increased gibberellin levels, and optimized photosynthetic electron transport, while reducing proteins involved in CO₂ fixation. Due to its unique reproductive biology and stress resilience, R. rubiginosa represents a valuable genetic resource for breeding drought-tolerant cultivars within the economically important Rosaceae family, especially in the context of desertification and steppe formation affecting agricultural lands.