A method for assessing the frequency of hormetic trade-offs in plants

Hormesis is a biphasic response to stress, involving low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition. Currently, attempts are being made to use the hormetic stimulation of plant parameters to increase resilience to severe stress. However, due to hormetic trade-offs, low-dose stress does not always cause synchronous improvement of different plant parameters. Some parameters do not change and even some even worsen compared to the control. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the frequency of hormetic trade-offs. In this study, a method for estimating the probabilities of two types of hormetic trade-off in plants was developed. This method is intended solely to improve the scientific understanding of plant hormesis and a first step towards a more extensive evaluation of hormetic trade-offs in plants. • The proposed method estimates the probabilities of hormetic trade-offs 1 and 2 in plants using simple calculations. • This method can be applied to estimate the probability of hormetic trade-offs 1 and 2 both for a set of independent experiments and in a single experiment. • This method could be used in the future to identify doses and factors that stimulate the greatest number of traits without worsening others.