Adverse variations of abiotic environmental cues that deviate from an optimal range impose stresses to plants.Abiotic stresses severely impede plant physiology and development.Con-sequently,such stresses dramatically reduce crop yield and negatively impact on ecosystem stability and composition.Physical components of abiotic stresses can be,for example,suboptimal tem-perature and osmotic perturbations,while repre-sentative chemical facets of abiotic stresses can be toxic ions or suboptimal nutrient availability.The sheer complexity of abiotic stresses causes a multitude of diverse components and mecha-nisms for their sensing and signal transduction.Ca2+,as a versatile second messenger,plays multifaceted roles in almost all abiotic stress re-sponses in that,for a certain abiotic stress,Ca2+ is not only reciprocally connected with its percep-tion,but also multifunctionally ensures sub-sequent signal transduction.Here,we will focus on salt/osmotic stress and responses to altered nutrient availability as model cases to detail novel insights into the identity of components that link stress perception to Ca2+ signal formation as well as on new insights into mechanisms of Ca2+ signal implementation.Finally,we will deduce emerging conceptual consequences of these novel insights and outline arising avenues of future research on the role of Ca2+ signaling in abiotic stress re-sponses in plants.