Welcome to Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology! Today is Share:

Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2018, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (12): 3949-3958.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.201812.022

• Research paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of NaCl stress on stomatal traits, leaf gas exchange parameters, and biomass of two tomato cultivars

GUO Li-li1, HAO Li-hua1, JIA Hui-hui2, LI Fei1, ZHANG Xi-xi1, CAO Xu1, XU Ming3,4, ZHENG Yun-pu1,3*   

  1. 1School of Water Conservancy and Hydropower, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, Hebei, China;
    2School of Landscape and Ecological Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, Hebei, China;
    3Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
    4School of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100038, China
  • Received:2018-04-16 Revised:2018-10-08 Online:2018-12-20 Published:2018-12-20
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0300905), Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (C2016402088), Young Outstanding Innovative Talents of Hebei Province (BJ2016012), Hebei Province Foundation for Returnees (CN201702), the Innovation Capability Upgrading Plan of Hebei Province (18965307H), and Hebei Province Graduate Student Innovation Ability Subsidized Project (CXZZSS2018077, CXZZSS2018078).

Abstract: To understand the mechanism underlying responses of stomatal traits, gas exchange parameters, and biomass of tomato plants to salt stress, two tomato cultivars (Shed and Alam) were treated by salt stress by adding NaCl (0.1 mol·L-1) to nutrition medium in environmental growth chambers for 90 days. Our results showed that salt stress substantially decreased the stomatal density, stomatal width, stomatal area, and stomatal area index of Shed by 32%, 45%, 25%, and 49%, respectively. The stomatal traits of Alam were not affected by NaCl treatment. The spatial scales of the regular stomatal distribution pattern of Shed and Alam were significantly decreased by 30% and 43%, and the nearest neighbor distance Lhat (d) of shed cultivar was increased by 20% under salt stress. NaCl stress resulted in marginal declines in the net photosynthetic rates (Pn), stomatal conductance (gs), transpiration rates (Tr) of both cultivars. The decrease of the photosynthetic rate of Shed under salt stress resulted from stomatal limitation, whereas the Pn of Alam was subjected to non-stomatal constraints. NaCl stress substantially decreased the seedling biomass of both cultivars, and the decline of belowground biomass was higher than that of aboveground biomass. Overall, our results suggested that the Alam cultivar is more salt-tolerant than Shed.