Responses of pepper to waterlogging stress

Abstract

One of the effective ways to address the effects of abnormal climate change on plant is to find germplasms that have better resistance to adverse environments. In this paper, we studied the responses of 5 pepper species Capsicum annuum L. (CA), C. baccatum L. (CB), C. chinense Jacquin. (CC), C. frutescens L. (CF) and C. pubescens Ruiz & Pavon (CP) as well as a wild pepper C. baccatum var. baccatum (CBY) to waterlogging stress. The results showed that warterlogging treatment greatly decreases photosynthetic pigment content, net photosynthetic rate (P N ) and stomatal conductance (g s ), and dramatically increases proline content and water-use efficiency (WUE) in all tested pepper, suggesting that pepper has weak resistance to waterlogging stress. The results also showed that changes of the above parameters vary in different species. CP had the smallest decreases in photosynthetic pigment content, P N , and g s and greatest increases in proline content and WUE. By contrast, CC had the greatest decreases in photosynthetic pigment content, P N , and g s and smallest increases in proline content and WUE, indicating that different species had different resistance to adverse environment and species CP and CC had the strongest and the weakest resistances, respectively. In addition, the study also demonstrated that wild pepper CBY had better resistance to adverse environment than all the tested species, indicating loss of the stress resistance genes during the process of domestication. Taking together, our study strongly suggests that pepper species should crossbreed with other species and wild pepper to expand genetic diversity, enlarge genetic distance, promote production, and improve the resistance to adverse environments.

Phytochemicals in native Peruvian Capsicum pubescens (Rocoto)

“…Resistance to different stress situations have been comparatively studied for the 5 domesticated chili pepper species by Ou et al [20,21]. They found that the investigated Guatemalan C. pubescens pepper had the strongest resistance to low temperatures and was more resistant against drought stress and water logging.…”

Threshold effects of photosynthetic efficiency parameters of wild jujube in response to soil moisture variation on shell beach ridges, Shandong, China

“…In order to absorb CO 2 , plants must lose a certain amount of water by transpiration, but this portion did not affect photosynthetic production. This may provide a theoretical basis and practical guidance for reducing transpiration to increase plant WUE without reducing photosynthetic production (Jiang 2004;Ou et al 2011). In practical applications, certain artificial control measures, such as water supply and water conservation, shading at different plant growth stages, and using anti-transpirant materials may reduce plant luxury transpiration and achieve effects of water conservation and increase WUE (Guo et al 2010;Cernusaka et al 2011).…”

Temporal Changes in Biochemical and Antioxidant Enzymes Activities in Maize (Zea mays L.) under Waterlogging Stress during Early Growth Stage

“…Increased level of proline under waterlogged condition, as compared to normal plants, in genotype CML-204 might be associated with its waterlogging resistant characteristics. The adaptation process of crops to adverse environmental stresses is often accompanied by changes of some compatible osmolytes (Ou et al, 2011). It is well known that abiotic stresses result in increased proline contents in plants (Srivastava et al, 2007).…”