M. Ravanbakhsh, B. Babakhani, M. Ghasemnezhad, F. Serpooshan, Mohamad Hassan Biglouie
{"title":"Acer velutinum Bioss. (velvet maple) seedlings are more tolerant to water deficit than Alnus subcordata C.A. Mey. (Caucasian alder) seedlings","authors":"M. Ravanbakhsh, B. Babakhani, M. Ghasemnezhad, F. Serpooshan, Mohamad Hassan Biglouie","doi":"10.37427/botcro-2022-029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Drought stress is a major environmental factor limiting plant growth. Selection of drought-tolerant plants is of critical importance in vegetation restoration and forestation programs. Alnus subcordata and Acer velutinum are two valuable, dominant, and endemic species in the Hyrcanian forests. There are fast-growing species and significant diffuse-porous hardwood in afforestation and reforestation. One-year old seedlings of both species were exposed to four water shortage treatments (100, 75, 50 and 25% of field capacity (FC) chosen as control, mild, moderate, and severe) for 12 weeks. Thereafter, their morphological characteristics such as height and basal area, total and organs biomass (root, stem, and leaf), leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf area ratio (LAR), as well as physiological and biochemical characteristics such as relative water content (RWC), content of chlorophyll, free proline and malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activity were measured. The results showed that when exposed to reduced water availability, plants’ height, basal diameter, total and organs biomass, LA, LAR, RWC and chlorophyll content decreased, but their proline concentration, MDA content, SOD, and POD activity increased in both species. The root to shoot ratio (R/S) and root mass ratio (RMR) increased at 50 and 25% FC treatments in A. subcordata, whereas no significant difference was found in A. velutinum under drought treatments. SLA increased significantly at 50% FC in A. velutinum and decreased in A. subcordata under drought treatments compared to control treatment. A. velutinum showed more proline content, RWC, POD, and lower increase in MDA content than A. subcordata under moderate treatment. Therefore, A. velutinum appears to possess a better mechanism to cope drought stress. The drought tolerance of A. velutinum may enhance its potential for climatic adaptations under drier conditions with the ongoing climatic change.","PeriodicalId":6967,"journal":{"name":"Acta Botanica Croatica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Acta Botanica Croatica","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.37427/botcro-2022-029","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PLANT SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Drought stress is a major environmental factor limiting plant growth. Selection of drought-tolerant plants is of critical importance in vegetation restoration and forestation programs. Alnus subcordata and Acer velutinum are two valuable, dominant, and endemic species in the Hyrcanian forests. There are fast-growing species and significant diffuse-porous hardwood in afforestation and reforestation. One-year old seedlings of both species were exposed to four water shortage treatments (100, 75, 50 and 25% of field capacity (FC) chosen as control, mild, moderate, and severe) for 12 weeks. Thereafter, their morphological characteristics such as height and basal area, total and organs biomass (root, stem, and leaf), leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf area ratio (LAR), as well as physiological and biochemical characteristics such as relative water content (RWC), content of chlorophyll, free proline and malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activity were measured. The results showed that when exposed to reduced water availability, plants’ height, basal diameter, total and organs biomass, LA, LAR, RWC and chlorophyll content decreased, but their proline concentration, MDA content, SOD, and POD activity increased in both species. The root to shoot ratio (R/S) and root mass ratio (RMR) increased at 50 and 25% FC treatments in A. subcordata, whereas no significant difference was found in A. velutinum under drought treatments. SLA increased significantly at 50% FC in A. velutinum and decreased in A. subcordata under drought treatments compared to control treatment. A. velutinum showed more proline content, RWC, POD, and lower increase in MDA content than A. subcordata under moderate treatment. Therefore, A. velutinum appears to possess a better mechanism to cope drought stress. The drought tolerance of A. velutinum may enhance its potential for climatic adaptations under drier conditions with the ongoing climatic change.
期刊介绍:
The interest of the journal is field (terrestrial and aquatic) and experimental botany (including microorganisms, plant viruses, bacteria, unicellular algae), from subcellular level to ecosystems. The attention of the Journal is aimed to the research of karstic areas of the southern Europe, karstic waters and the Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean).