Although drought resistance of a plant may be achieved through morphological, structural, physiological, cellular, and molecular adaptations, most studies remain limited to quantifying the effect of drought on biomass.
Using a highthroughput phenotypic imaging system, we evaluated the drought resistance of 151 bean accessions (Phaseolinae; Fabaceae) in an explorative approach, by quantifying five different traits simultaneously: biomass, water use efficiency (WUE), relative water content (RWC), chlorophyll content (NDVI), and root/shoot ratio. Since crop wild relatives are important resources for breeding programs, we analyzed both wild and cultivated accessions, most of which have never been evaluated for drought resistance before.
We demonstrate that the five traits are affected very differently by drought in the studied accessions, with significant correlations existing only between the biomass and WUE indicators (r=0.39), and between the RWC and NDVI indicators (r=0.40). When grouping accessions by subgenus or by species, large intraspecific and withinsubgenus variation was found. For this reason, we performed a cluster analysis, which grouped the accessions into five distinct clusters with similar response profiles. We also correlated the drought resistance for each accession to local climate variables at their original collection sites. The biomass, WUE, and RWC indicators were significantly correlated to annual precipitation (r=0.40, r=0.20, r=0.22, respectively), confirming that accessions from arid environments are generally more drought resistant.
Our results demonstrate that the drought resistance of Phaseolinae beans is a multifaceted characteristic and cannot be simply quantified through biomass. Furthermore, the broader knowledge of the drought resistance of the accessions studied here may prove an invaluable resource for future crop production.