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Morphological and biomass characteristic acclimation of trident maple (Acer buergerianum Miq.) in response to light and water stress

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Abstract

Acer buergerianum Miq. (Trident maple) is a native species of China with a large distribution, but exist in small population. Water and light are two important factors limiting plant growth and are crucial in the framework of forest regeneration. However, there is no consensus on how shade interacts with drought. Four hypotheses in the recent literature variously predict that shade will have a stronger, weaker or equal impact on seedlings under drought stress. This study investigated the interactive responses of A. buergerianum to light and water focusing on seedling growth, leaf morphology and biomass partitioning by performing a growth experiment in pots with different water supply regimes [15, 35, 55, 75, 95 % of field capacity (FC)] combined with two light regimes (10 and 66 % of full sunlight). After 123 days treatment, the results showed that shade greatly reduced growth and biomass, in contrast enhancing the amount of chlorophyll, the amount of water in the leaves, and the specific leaf area. Drought reduced growth, biomass, and the bulk of the leaves. Most leaf traits and biomass characteristics had strong interactions in their responses to light and water treatments. Allometric analysis revealed that water and light had no effects on root to shoot ratios, main root to lateral root ratios, and root mass ratios. Shade alleviated the negative impact of drought. A. buergerianum successfully adapted to the various light and water conditions. We recommend a water supply above 15 % FC to keep the seedlings vigorous, under both sunlight conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We express our deep gratitude to Yinghua Wei, Chong Fang, Huan He, Yifu Yuan, Chengdong Wang, Wenjuan Ding, Penglin Lu and Hua Chen for their help during the experiments. Thanks to Dr. Jian Liu for his valuable comments and suggestions on the submission, to Dr. Roberta Greenwood of Shandong University for linguistic advice. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful and helpful comments. The research was supported by National Science Foundation of China (No.30970166; 31270374), Ministry of Education on Doctorial Discipline (No.20090131110066) and Independent Inovation Project of Shandong University (No.2010JC004; 2011DX008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao Guo, Weihua Guo, Yujie Luo, Xiangfeng Tan, Ning Du & Renqing Wang

  2. Shandong Provincial Engineering and Technology Research Center for Vegetation Ecology, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao Guo, Weihua Guo, Yujie Luo, Xiangfeng Tan, Ning Du & Renqing Wang

  3. Environment Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Ning Du & Renqing Wang

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  1. Xiao Guo
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  2. Weihua Guo
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  3. Yujie Luo
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  4. Xiangfeng Tan
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  5. Ning Du
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Correspondence to Renqing Wang.

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Communicated by J. Franklin.

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Guo, X., Guo, W., Luo, Y. et al. Morphological and biomass characteristic acclimation of trident maple (Acer buergerianum Miq.) in response to light and water stress. Acta Physiol Plant 35, 1149–1159 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-012-1154-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-012-1154-0

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