1.
Clonal integration enhances the performance of a clonal plant species under soil alkalinity stress.
Zhang, W, Yang, G, Sun, J, Chen, J, Zhang, Y
PloS one. 2015;(3):e0119942
Abstract
Clonal plants have been shown to successfully survive in stressful environments, including salinity stress, drought and depleted nutrients through clonal integration between original and subsequent ramets. However, relatively little is known about whether clonal integration can enhance the performance of clonal plants under alkalinity stress. We investigated the effect of clonal integration on the performance of a typical rhizomatous clonal plant, Leymus chinensis, using a factorial experimental design with four levels of alkalinity and two levels of rhizome connection treatments, connected (allowing integration) and severed (preventing integration). Clonal integration was estimated by comparing physiological and biomass features between the rhizome-connected and rhizome-severed treatments. We found that rhizome-connected treatment increased the biomass, height and leaf water potential of subsequent ramets at highly alkalinity treatments but did not affect them at low alkalinity treatments. However, rhizome-connected treatment decreased the root biomass of subsequent ramets and did not influence the photosynthetic rates of subsequent ramets. The biomass of original ramets was reduced by rhizome-connected treatment at the highest alkalinity level. These results suggest that clonal integration can increase the performance of clonal plants under alkalinity stress. Rhizome-connected plants showed dramatically increased survival of buds with negative effects on root weight, indicating that clonal integration influenced the resource allocation pattern of clonal plants. A cost-benefit analysis based on biomass measures showed that original and subsequent ramets significantly benefited from clonal integration in highly alkalinity stress, indicating that clonal integration is an important adaptive strategy by which clonal plants could survive in local alkalinity soil.
2.
[Effects of soil water status on gas exchange of peanut and early rice leaves].
Chen, J, Lü, G, He, Y
Ying yong sheng tai xue bao = The journal of applied ecology. 2005;(1):105-10
Abstract
The gas exchange characteristics of peanut and early rice leaves were investigated in experimental plots under different soil water conditions over a long growth period. The results showed that at the branching stage of peanut, the stomatal conductance (Gs) and transpiration rate (Tr) decreased slightly under mild and moderate soil water stress, while the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and leaf water use efficiency (WUE) increased. The Gs/Tr ratio also increased under mild water stress, but decreased under moderate water stress. At podding stage, the Gs, Tr, Gs/Tr ratio and Pn decreased, while WUE increased significantly under mild and moderate water stress. The peanut was suffered from water stress at its pod setting stage. At the grain filling stage of early rice, the Gs, Tr and Gs/Tr ratio fluctuated insignificantly under mild and moderate water stress, while Pn and WUE increased significantly, with an increase in grain yield under mild water stress. It's suggested that the combination of Gs and Gs/Tr ratio could be a reference index for crop water stress, namely, crops could be hazarded by water stress when Gs and Gs/Tr decreased synchronously.