Plants live in environments influenced by various abiotic factors that can cause diverse stresses, for example, because of low or high temperature, deficient or excessive water, high salinity, heavy metals, and ultraviolet radiation, etc. These abiotic stresses are hostile to plant growth and development, leading to great fruit quality and crop yield penalties worldwide, especially under the global climate change. Facing the numerous abiotic stresses, plants have developed strategies to protect themselves in evolution. The elucidation of their effects and underlying mechanisms is of great significance as a fundamental principle to relieve the pressure of environmental changes and to meet the demand of human population growth Up-to-date scientific efforts are welcome to be delivered into this topic for a comprehensive understanding of the physiological and molecular effects of diverse abiotic stresses on plants ranging from model species to economically important crops. The newly identified and characterized mechanisms and genetics associated with plant adaptability to abiotic stress will provide novel insights into the physiological and molecular alterations of plants under abiotic stresses. It will assist in understanding plants’ behavior adapting to the environmental change and perspective agricultural practice including crop breeding and field management, and eventually help maintain the food security, safety, and sustainability. In addition, increasing evidence shows that the recent advancements and developments of plant biotechnologies and application of big data to the area of plant science promote the understanding of the physiological and molecular effects of diverse abiotic stresses on plants. Hence, the investigations integrated by multidisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged, including but not limited to: CRISPR/Cas-mediated gene editing, functional genomics, phenomics, and high-throughput phenotyping etc.