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Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2017, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (5): 1455-1463.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.201705.034

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Physiological responses of five plants in northwest China arid area under drought stress

DING Long, ZHAO Hui-min, ZENG Wen-jing, LI Qing, WANG Yang, WANG Si-qing*   

  1. College of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University/Beijing Key Laboratory of Ornamental Plants Germplasm Innovation & Molecular Breeding/National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture/Beijing Laboratory of Urban and Rural Ecological Environment/Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants, Beijing 100083, China
  • Received:2016-10-11 Revised:2017-03-02 Published:2017-05-18
  • Contact: *E-mail: wangsiqing547@sina.com
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the Special Foundation for Beijing Common Construction Project, China (671501006), and the Qinghai Science & Technology Department Project, China (2016-NK-C15)

Abstract: Effects of drought stress on photosynthetic characteristics, water status, physiological and biochemical indexes were studied in five arid area plants in northwest China, including Potentilla fruticosa, Lycium ruthenicum, Caryopteris mongholica, Caragana korshinskii and Hedysarum scoparium, using pot experiments. The results showed that with the prolongation of drought stress, the water conservation capacity of leaves totally increased in above five plants, the leaf relative water content rose first and then fell, and the relative chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters decreased to some extent. Overall, the photosynthetic system of H. scoparium and L. ruthenicum least affected by the stress, and P. fruticosa suffered with the most serious damage. The electric conductivity and malondialdehyde (MDA) content of P. fruticosa firstly decreased and then sharply increased, while superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activities firstly increased and then dramatically decreased. With the decrease of soil water content, the electric conductivity rose firstly and then fell in the other four plants,the change of MDA content rose first and then fell, or fell first and then rose, and the activities of SOD and POD almost displayed upward trend. Especially, SOD activity of C. mongholica and POD activity of H. scoparium had the biggest increment among the five plants after 28 days of drought stress, increasing by 1.1 and 13.1 times respectively, compared with before processing. Additionally, there was significant variance in the accumulation of organic solutes among the five plants during the drought stress treatment. The accumulation of soluble sugar and free proline was the most in P. fruticosa, increasing by 1.1 and 22.4 times respectively, after 28 days of drought treatment. H. sco-parium accumulated the most soluble protein, increasing by 1.0 times after 28 days of drought treatment. The result of membership function method showed that the drought tolerance decreased in order of H. scopariumL. ruthenicum C. korshinskii C. mongholica P. fruticosa. The research revealed that all five plants could make positive response to drought stress through improving the activity of antioxidant enzymes and accumulating organic solutes, which could help to reduce cell damage. P. fruticos was most sensitive to water deficit in the five plants, and the degree of drought had exceeded its own regulated capacity threshold during the experiment.