Flood tolerance of wheat – the importance of leaf gas films during complete submergence
Anders Winkel A B , Max Herzog A , Dennis Konnerup A , Anja Heidi Floytrup A and Ole Pedersen A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A The Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 4, 3rd floor, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
B Corresponding author. Email: awinkel@bio.ku.dk
Functional Plant Biology 44(9) 888-898 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP16395
Submitted: 7 November 2016 Accepted: 23 March 2017 Published: 26 April 2017
Abstract
Submergence invokes a range of stressors to plants with impeded gas exchange between tissues and floodwater being the greatest challenge. Many terrestrial plants including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), possess superhydrophobic leaf cuticles that retain a thin gas film when submerged, and the gas films enhance gas exchange with the floodwater. However, leaf hydrophobicity is lost during submergence and the gas films disappear accordingly. Here, we completely submerged wheat (with or without gas films) for up to 14 days and found that plants with gas films survived significantly longer (13 days) than plants without (10 days). Plants with gas films also had less dead tissue following a period of recovery. However, this study also revealed that reflections by gas films resulted in a higher light compensation point for underwater net photosynthesis for leaves with gas films compared with leaves without (IC = 52 vs 35 µmol photons m–2 s–1 with or without gas films, respectively). Still, already at ~5% of full sunlight the beneficial effect of gas films overcame the negative under ecologically relevant CO2 concentrations. Our study showed that dryland crops also benefit from leaf gas films during submergence and that this trait should be incorporated to improve flood tolerance of wheat.
Additional keywords: air film, flooding tolerance, hydrophobicity, underwater photosynthesis, underwater respiration, water repellent.
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