Impact of salt stress on the features and activities of root system for three desert halophyte species in their seedling stage

Abstract

Linkage between belowground and aboveground sections of ecological system is mainly depending on root system. But root system is the parts of plant that people less understand. The absorption function of root system is closely related to their morphology and activity. Moreover root system can interact with the environmental stress under the adverse situation, and adjust its system to take adaptation responses in morphology and physiology to strengthen its survival chance. This research is focused on three desert halophyte species of H. ammodendron (C.A.Mey.) Bge., S. physophora Pall., and S. nitraria Pall. under solution culture, to study the differences of their root system morphology and activity in the seedling stage under varying salt concentration conditions. The study results show that: A certain salt concentration can promote development of these three halophytes; but rather high salt concentration will restrain their growth, in particular inhibit the root system development. Under the same salt concentration condition, S. nitraria Pall. grows fast and accumulates the largest amount of biomass. Under relatively low salt concentration, the length of axial root and the total length of root system of these three halophyte species are all increased; and compared to the checking samples, S. physophora Pall. occupies the top place of root system growth, but the high salt concentration will restrain the increase of total root length; among them, the impact intensity on S. physophora Pall. is lighter than to H. ammodendron (C.A.Mey.) Bge. and S. nitraria Pall. is lighter; the salinity does not bring distinct influence on the average diameter of root system of these three plant species, but trends to reducing the size; under the solution culture conditions, the middle and lower parts of the axial root of H. ammodendron (C.A.Mey.) Bge. and S. physophora Pall. are rather equally distributed, but the central zone of S. nitraria Pall. root system is more significantly increased than the upper and lower zones; salt concentration does not bring significant impact on the root system spatial distribution of each species. The root activity of the three plants is increased along with the increase of the salt concentration. When the salt concentration is low, the root activity is not significantly increased; but when the salt concentration is high, the root activity is increased significantly. The experimental results show that the saline tolerance capacity of H. ammodendron (C.A.Mey.) Bge. is lower than the other two species, and the capacity of S. physophora Pall. ranks the top place.