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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1502201
This article is part of the Research Topic Plant Responses to Environmental Change View all articles

Fine-root and Leaf Acquisitive Traits Decoupled From Chloride Accumulation in Reflecting the Differential Salinity Tolerance Among Prunus Hybrids

Provisionally accepted
Shuangxi Zhou Shuangxi Zhou 1*Rob R Walker Rob R Walker 2Everard Edwards Everard Edwards 2
  • 1 Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development of Western Australia (DPIRD), South Perth, Australia
  • 2 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Improving crop salinity management requires enhanced understanding of salinity responses of leaf and fine-root traits governing resource acquisition, ideally in relation to ion accumulation at intra- or inter-specific levels. We hypothesized that these responses are coupled towards integrated resource conservation for plants under prolonged salt treatment. We tested the hypothesis with a glasshouse experiment on saplings of six contrasting Prunus hybrids, subjected to either control or salt treatment (reverse osmosis water versus 3.3 dS m-1 chloride solution containing mixed cations). Sample collections were carried out at 30 and at 60 days after the start of treatments. All six hybrids showed significantly higher lamina chloride concentration in response to salt treatment, with GF677 accumulating a lower concentration than the other five hybrids. There was significantly lower specific leaf area (SLA) in ‘Monegro’ and lower root tissue density (RTD) in ‘Nemaguard’ after 60 days – but not 30 days – of salt treatment. No hybrid showed concurrent significant decrease of SLA and specific root surface area (SRA) under salt treatment. The a priori known salinity-sensitive hybrid ‘Nemaguard’ not only showed decreased RTD and a negative relationship between root biomass and salt treatment duration, but also showed increased SRA without notable change of average root diameter. Lamina chloride accumulation and leaf gas exchange response were closely correlated along a gradient towards resource conservation from control to salt-treated plants in all hybrids, which was orthogonal to another gradient characterized by a hybrid-dependent modification of SLA, SRA, RTD and percentage of root length within the finest diameter class. This study highlighted the interspecific differential resource investment strategies, reflected by the hybrid-specific salinity-response coordination among leaf and fine-root acquisitive traits.

    Keywords: Acquisition-conservation trade-off, Almond rootstock, Ion accumulation, Root distribution, root morphology, salt stress, Soil environment change, Stress acclimation

    Received: 26 Sep 2024; Accepted: 20 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhou, Walker and Edwards. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shuangxi Zhou, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development of Western Australia (DPIRD), South Perth, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.