Abstract
Drought can impact local vegetation dynamics in a long term. In order to predict the possible successional pathway of local community under drought, the responses of some drought resistance indices of six successional seral species in the semi-arid Loss Hilly Region of China were illustrated and compared on three levels of soil water deficits along three growing months (7, 8 and 9). The results showed that: 1) the six species had significant differences in SOD, POD activities and MDA content. The rank correlations between SOD, POD activities and the successional niche positions of the six species were positive, and the correlation between MDA content and the niche positions was negative; 2) activities of SOD, CAT and POD, and content of proline and MDA had significant differences among the three months; 3) there existed significant interactions of SOD, CAT, POD activities and MDA content between months and species. With an exception, no interaction of proline was found. Proline in leaves had a general decline in reproductive month; 4) SOD, CAT, POD activities and proline content had negative correlations with MDA content. Among which, the correlation between SOD activity and MDA content was significant. The results implied that, in arid or semiarid region, the species at later successional stage tend to have strong drought resistance than those at early stage. Anti-drought indices can partially interpret the pathway of community succession in the drought impacted area. SOD activity is more distinct and important on the scope of protecting membrane damage through the scavenging of ROS on exposure to drought.
Highlights
Drought can impact many ecosystem processes and their function, such as the vegetation succession, biodiversity, productivity and sustainability, etc [1,2]
A significant interaction effect existed between growing months and species, which implied that the six species had different changing tendency of Super oxide Dismutase (SOD) activities along the three months
The multivariate comparison results showed that species of S. viridis, L. dahurica and B. ischaemum had significantly the lowest SOD activities in September
Summary
Drought can impact many ecosystem processes and their function, such as the vegetation succession, biodiversity, productivity and sustainability, etc [1,2]. Drought can intermittently disturb water cycle of ecosystem, and the carbon and mineral cycle that closely interact with water cycle [6] These can stunt live beings indirectly through decreasing the resource availability [7]. Many works had been done on the scope of drought-induced phenomena, processes and mechanismsof plants, anti-drought field practices, and breedings of drought tolerant species or varieties, as well [7,9,10]. Most of these works were dealt with crop plants for the purpose of food, feed and fuel products improvement. How a local ecosystem responds to that change and what is the possible changing tendency of an ecosystem, e.g., the successional pathway (or trajectory) of rangeland and forest, would make a sense of ecosystem conservation
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