Welcome to Chinese Journal of Ecology! Today is Share:

cje

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Physiological responses of Taxus chinensis var. mairei to SO2 stress.

SUN Ling-xia, ZHANG Jun-ming, CAI Shi-zhen, LI Xi**   

  1. (College of Landscape Architecture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China)
  • Online:2014-07-10 Published:2014-07-10

Abstract: In order to investigate the resistance mechanism of Taxus chinensis var. mairei to sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution, one-year-old potted seedlings were grown in an enclosed fumigation chamber, and the concentration of SO2 was set as 5, 10, 20 and 40 mg·m-3 for various durations. Our results showed that the membrane permeability, the contents of  malondialdehyde (MDA), freeproline and soluble sugar were enhanced with the increase of SO2 concentration and duration, while the contents of chlorophyll a and b decreased. The injury symptoms in leaves were first observed at 20 mg·m-3 SO2 after 5-day exposure. Under the same experimental duration, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) were induced greatly at the lower SO2 concentrations and then decreased at the higher SO2 concentrations. The activities of SOD and APX were induced at 5 mg·m-3 SO2, while those of peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT) were induced at 10 mg·m-3 SO2. Under the 40 mg·m-3 SO2 stress, the activities of SOD, CAT, POD, and APX were significantly decreased in comparison with those in the control during the whole experimental periods. Our results suggest that Taxus chinensis var. mairei can adapt to 10 mg·m-3 SO2polluted environments with no obvious phenotypic injury through its own stress protection system to improve resistance to SO2, therefore this species can be planted in SO2 polluted areas.

Key words: carbon metabolic index, degradation, soil microbial biomass C and N, alpine meadow, enzymes