Morphological, Physiological and Photophysiological Responses of Critically Endangered Acer catalpifolium to Acid Stress

Abstract

Acid rain deposition (AR) has long-lasting implications for the community stability and biodiversity conservation in southwest China. Acer catalpifolium is a critically endangered species in the rain zone of Western China where AR occurs frequently. To understand the effects of AR on the morphology and physiology of A. catalpifolium, we conducted an acid stress simulation experiment for 1.5 years. The morphological, physiological, and photosynthetic responses of A. catalpifolium to the acidity, composition, and deposition pattern of acid stress was observed. The results showed that simulated acid stress can promote the growth of A. catalpifolium via the soil application mode. The growth improvement of A. catalpifolium under nitric-balanced acid rain via the soil application mode was greater than that of sulfuric-dominated acid rain via the soil application mode. On the contrary, the growth of A. catalpifolium was significantly inhibited by acid stress and the inhibition increased with the acidity of acid stress applied via leaf spraying. The inhibitory impacts of nitric-balanced acid rain via the leaf spraying of A. catalpifolium were greater than that of sulfur-dominant acid rain via leaf spraying. The observations presented in this work can be utilized for considering potential population restoration plans for A. catalpifolium, as well as the forests in southwest China.

Pan-metagenome reveals the abiotic stress resistome of cigar tobacco phyllosphere microbiome

“…Environmental pH perturbation is a significant factor affecting both plants and their associated microbiota, as it can disrupt cellular homeostasis and physiology ( Zhou et al., 2022 ). The southwestern regions of China have experienced high levels of acid rain, which may have had an impact on foliar ecology ( Zhang et al., 2021 ). In our study, we identified 1,373 gene entries related to acid stress resistance in the tested metagenomes (see Table S1 at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21257352.v1 ).…”

Applications of Omics in Plant-Microbiome Interactions

“…HTL-WW irrigation improved plant chlorophyll content and increased the flower biomass in tobacco plants (Figure 2 and Table 2). These results can be respectively associated with high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as macronutrients such as sulphates, calcium and magnesium contained in the HTL-WW (Table 1) since it is reported their involvement in flowering of different plants (Patel et al, 2006;Erel et al, 2008;Ye et al, 2019) and in chlorophyll content (Wang et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021). The tobacco plants treated with HTL-WW have not shown symptoms of heavy metals stress confirming that the concentrations of heavy metals were under harmful levels and anyhow below the official admitted thresholds.…”

“…Properties and nutrient contents of soil directly affect plant growth and productivity (Ma et al, 2021). The high EC value of soil reflects the over-concentration of soluble salt, which is not conducive to plant growth (Sun et al, 2022;Yin et al, 2022).…”

“…practices based on the previous studies (Lu et al, 2022;. On the one hand, rhizosphere microorganisms have the potential to assist host plants in taking up nutrients and resisting biotic/abiotic stress Choi et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021). On the other hand, some harmful rhizosphere microorganisms can also cause adverse effects on plants, such as reduced resistance and reduced yield (Mansfield et al, 2012;Ullrich et al, 2019).…”

“…The histology of leaves and fruit peel from the NF and MF groups were observed via paraffin section as described by (Zhang et al, 2021). Briefly, the leaf and fruit peel tissues were cut into 2-3 mm sections and embedded in paraffin.…”