Posidonia australis Growing in Altered Salinities: Leaf Growth, Regulation of Turgor and the Development of Osmotic Gradients

Abstract

The marine angiosperm Posidonia australis Hook f. is always submerged and the leaf cells are able to exchange ions, gases and water with the surrounding seawater. The base of the youngest lamina is surrounded by sheaths from older leaves and a gradient in cell osmotic pressure existed from the base of the lamina enclosed within the sheath to the emerged zone at the top of the sheath. For plants grown in seawater, the cells at the base of the lamina had an osmotic pressure of 1.34 MPa (seawater = 2.54 MPa); the osmotic pressure increased with distance along the lamina to the emerged lamina value of 3.09 MPa. The osmotic gradient was accounted for by cell concentration gradients of Na⁺ (73 mol m^-3 increasing to 412 mol m^-3), K+ (91 mol m^-3 increasing to 279 mol m^-3) and Cl- (62 mol m^-3 increasing to 578 mol m^-3). Gradients also existed in the cell concentrations of sucrose and amino acids. It is proposed that, within the solution enclosed by the sheath, a standing osmotic gradient is created by ion uptake from the sheath solution.

Leaf growth was unaffected by salinities from 13‰ to 57‰ and net photosynthesis was unaffected by reduction in salinity from 34‰ to 19‰. The cells of the leaves and rhizome adjusted their osmotic pressure by changes in Na⁺, K⁺ and Cl^- concentrations such that turgor varied only between 0.67 and 1.52 MPa over a range in external osmotic pressures from 0.83 to 3.89 MPa. The tolerance of P. australis to changes in salinity in the absence of severe physical disturbance is due, largely, to the sheath and to the osmotic pressure gradient.