PHYSIOLOGICAL AND GENETICAL VARIABILITY AMONG SOME PLANTS UNDER DIFFERENT SALINITY CONDITIONS IN KUWAIT

Abstract

The present study is devoted to physical, biochemical and genetical investigations of three halophytic plants Salsola baryosma (Romy and Schult), Tragnum nudatum (Delile), and Nitraria retusa (Forssk.) from Khiran area to their three different environment (site 1) in front of Al Wataniyah Chalet Resort, (site 2) Behind Al Wataniyah Chalet Resort and (site 3) 5 Km. away from Al Wataniyah Chalet Resort) in Kuwait state. Abiotic and biotic factors of the study area are defined through soils and plant studies. Aerial parts of three plants were collected from three different sites of Kuwiat state. The elemental composition of leaves and stems reveals the macronutrients, micronutrients and heavy metals contents and the plant is not polluted, reflecting the safe environment. With regard to the biochemical components of the aerial parts, the moisture content varies within narrow limits is higher in leaves of plants Nitraria retusa, Tragnum nudatum and Salsola baryosma which grown in sites (3, 2 and 1), also in the stems of plants which grown in sites (3, 1 and 2), respectively. Also, ash content is relatively higher in leaves relative to stems. Moreover, total carbohydrates and total protein are quite higher in leaves relative to stems Nitraria retusa, Tragnum nudatum and Salsola baryosma in plants which grown in sites (3, 2 and 1), respectively. Total lipids are almost the same for stems and leaves and crude fiber is much higher in total amino acids in both leaves and stems, the acidic ones (aspartic and glutamic) are the most predominant while the least abundant are the cyclic and basic (tyrosine and histidine). Physiological and biochemical researches have shown that salt tolerance depend on a range of adaptations embracing many aspects of plant physiology one of these includes the compartmentation of ions. The (rbcL) species identification sequences reveled that Salsola is a genus of the subfamily Salsoloideae in the family (Amaranthaceae) or family (Chenopodiaceae) .That might be due to the in sufficient rbcL similar sequences of two plant species (Salsola baryosma, Tragnum nudatum) in the GenBank database, or the rbcL marker is the most suitable to be applied for the DNA barcoding for such families. However, the results revealed that, Nitraria is a genus of the family Nitrariaceae and Nitraria retusa is a spp.