Insights into root structure and function of Bassia indica: water redistribution and element dispersion
Oren Shelef A F , Paula Pongrac B , Primož Pelicon C , Primož Vavpetič C , Mitja Kelemen C , Merav Seifan D , Boris Rewald A E and Shimon Rachmilevitch A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A The French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands, The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boker Campus 84990, Israel.
B Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
C Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
D The Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Swiss Institute for Dryland Environmental and Energy Research, The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boker Campus 84990, Israel.
E Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Peter-Jordan-Straße 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
F Corresponding author. Email: shelefo@bgu.ac.il
Functional Plant Biology 43(7) 620-631 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP16057
Submitted: 14 August 2015 Accepted: 9 March 2016 Published: 16 May 2016
Abstract
In the last few decades, research has increasingly been aimed at clarifying how root system architecture, physiology and function are related to environmental drivers. ‘Negative halotropism’ has been defined as the alteration of root growth direction to avoid salinity. We suggested that ‘positive halotropism’ may be found in halophytes relying on salinity for optimal growth. Investigating root structure of the halophyte Bassia indica (Wight) A. J. Scott, we have shown that positive halotropism can explain the growth of horizontal roots towards optimal salt concentrations along a soil salinity gradient. Here we tested three hypotheses. First, that development of B. indica roots depends on a trade-off between optimal nutrient supply and saline concentrations: results of split-root-experiment showed a preference for sand enriched with nutrients and poor in salts. Second, that shallow horizontal roots enable B. indica to forage for nutrient-rich patches. Results demonstrated that bulk elemental analysis was not consistent with tissue-specific elemental analysis, and this can be explained by substantial variability of element composition of particular root segments. Third, we hypothesised that B. indica redistributes water horizontally through shallow horizontal roots. Results showed that back flow of water from the tap root towards tip root was possible in horizontal roots in saline microenvironment.
Additional keywords: abiotic stress, halotropism, root, salinity, spatial distribution, water redistribution.
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