Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas

It is generally accepted that dioecious plants occur more frequently in dry and nutrient-poor habitats, suggesting that abiotic stress factors could contribute to evolution of dioecy from hermaphrodite. Therefore, experimental investigations on the responses of subdioecious species, a special sexual...

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Autores principales: Yang, Jie, Hu, Lijuan, Wang, Zhengkun, Zhu, Wanlong, Meng, Lihua
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25505531
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1178
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author Yang, Jie
Hu, Lijuan
Wang, Zhengkun
Zhu, Wanlong
Meng, Lihua
author_facet Yang, Jie
Hu, Lijuan
Wang, Zhengkun
Zhu, Wanlong
Meng, Lihua
author_sort Yang, Jie
collection PubMed
description It is generally accepted that dioecious plants occur more frequently in dry and nutrient-poor habitats, suggesting that abiotic stress factors could contribute to evolution of dioecy from hermaphrodite. Therefore, experimental investigations on the responses of subdioecious species, a special sexual system comprising male, female, and hermaphrodite plants, to abiotic stress factors could quantify the contribution of selective pressure on the evolution of dioecy. In this study, we evaluated the physiological responses of different sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis Hemsley, a perennial herb native to the East Himalayas, to drought stress. Male, female, and hermaphrodite plants of O. sinensis were subjected to low, moderate, and high drought stress conditions in a glasshouse. Generally, with increasing water stress, the values of most measured variables slightly decreased, whereas water-use efficiency slightly increased. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in most of the measured parameters among the sex morphs under each drought stress treatment, indicating that O. sinensis might be well-adapted to drought stress conditions as its typical habitat is the dry and hot habitats of xerothermic river valleys. However, nitrogen-use efficiency was significantly higher in male and female plants than in hermaphrodite plants under high drought stress conditions, suggesting that that nitrogen-use efficiency under conditions of drought stress might have contributed to the evolution of dioecy from the hermaphrodite to some degree.
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spelling pubmed-42425572014-12-10 Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas Yang, Jie Hu, Lijuan Wang, Zhengkun Zhu, Wanlong Meng, Lihua Ecol Evol Original Research It is generally accepted that dioecious plants occur more frequently in dry and nutrient-poor habitats, suggesting that abiotic stress factors could contribute to evolution of dioecy from hermaphrodite. Therefore, experimental investigations on the responses of subdioecious species, a special sexual system comprising male, female, and hermaphrodite plants, to abiotic stress factors could quantify the contribution of selective pressure on the evolution of dioecy. In this study, we evaluated the physiological responses of different sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis Hemsley, a perennial herb native to the East Himalayas, to drought stress. Male, female, and hermaphrodite plants of O. sinensis were subjected to low, moderate, and high drought stress conditions in a glasshouse. Generally, with increasing water stress, the values of most measured variables slightly decreased, whereas water-use efficiency slightly increased. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in most of the measured parameters among the sex morphs under each drought stress treatment, indicating that O. sinensis might be well-adapted to drought stress conditions as its typical habitat is the dry and hot habitats of xerothermic river valleys. However, nitrogen-use efficiency was significantly higher in male and female plants than in hermaphrodite plants under high drought stress conditions, suggesting that that nitrogen-use efficiency under conditions of drought stress might have contributed to the evolution of dioecy from the hermaphrodite to some degree. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2014-11 2014-10-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4242557/ /pubmed/25505531 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1178 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Yang, Jie
Hu, Lijuan
Wang, Zhengkun
Zhu, Wanlong
Meng, Lihua
Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title_full Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title_fullStr Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title_full_unstemmed Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title_short Responses to drought stress among sex morphs of Oxyria sinensis (Polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the East Himalayas
title_sort responses to drought stress among sex morphs of oxyria sinensis (polygonaceae), a subdioecious perennial herb native to the east himalayas
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25505531
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1178
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