Global Bibliometric and Thematic Mapping of Plant Abiotic Stress Research (2021–2026): Genome-Wide Discovery, Transcriptional Dynamics, and Crop Resilience

Abstract

Accelerating climate variability and anthropogenic land degradation present critical challenges to global food security. Understanding how botanical systems perceive, transduce, and adapt to environmental extremes has spurred an exponential volume of biological research. This study provides an in-depth bibliometric and text-mining analysis of 10,000 peer-reviewed articles indexed in the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) PubMed database (csv-AbioticSt.csv) spanning 2021 through 2026. Utilizing longitudinal frequency modelling, journal dispersion metrics, and lexical semantic mapping of titles, we dissect the architectural framework of contemporary abiotic stress research. The analysis indicates an expanding research output peaking in 2025, an overwhelming consolidation of literature within high-throughput open-access journals, and a pronounced strategic shift: transitioning from single-gene over-expressions in model systems toward pan-genomic family mapping, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and multi-omics dissecting compound stress tolerances in major staple cereals and leguminous crops.