Abstract
Plant growth and development are regulated by phytohormones, such as abscisic acid, auxins, or gibberellins. Under drought stress, melatonin and the signaling calcium (Ca2+) are involved in plant defense and stress responses by controlling phytohormone and antioxidant machineries. Exogenous melatonin (MT) promotes drought stress tolerance in plants. As an essential second messenger, the signaling molecule Ca2+ is necessary in the stress tolerance of plants and might increase stress tolerance induced by exogenous melatonin. The present study elucidated the effects of Ca2+-MT on Dalbergia odorifera seedlings under drought stress. Results showed increases in growth traits and photosynthesis indexes (pigments, net photosynthetic rate, water use efficiency, stomatal conductance, and transpiration) by MT and Ca2+ under non stress and stress conditions. Under drought stress, the water status in leaves was slightly ameliorated by MT and Ca2+ treatments, whereas the Ca2+-MT combination strongly improved water status. Comparison between combined Ca2+-MT and single Ca2+/MT treatments showed that superoxide anion was significantly lower in Ca2+-MT-treated seedlings. Lipid peroxidation was lower in Ca2+-MT-treated seedlings under drought stress. Further, relative conductivity was significantly decreased by Ca2+ and MT treatments under stress compared with seedlings untreated with Ca2+ or MT under drought. The accumulation of proline decreased by Ca2+ and MT under stress, but the carbohydrates and protein contents were increased by exogenous MT and Ca2+. Under drought, antioxidant systems (peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase activities, and glutathione [GSH] and ascorbic acid [ASA] levels) were significantly increased by the Ca2+ and MT treatments. The combined treatment showed better performance in increasing GSH and ASA levels than single MT or Ca2+ treatment. The gibberellin GA3 and cytokine ZR increased significantly under non stress and stress conditions, but exogenous Ca2+ or MT did not increase their activities compared with those in the control groups. Exogenous Ca2+ and Ca2+-MT enhanced indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) content in D. odorifera leaves under stress compared with the control. Moreover, abscisic acid (ABA) level is downregulated by MT and Ca2+-MT treatments compared with the control. The seedlings treated with Ca2+ only showed increase in ABA concentration under drought stress. This study provides an insight into a possible coordination between Ca2+ and melatonin and into drought tolerance in woody plants.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (320RC507 and 317052), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32060240), and Scientific Research Starting Foundation of Hainan University to Fan Yang (kyqd1573).
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EHMC and FY wrote the draft manuscript; L-JZ performed the most of the experiments; EHMC, L-JZ, Y-JP, JZ, and D-DL collected the data, draw the graphs, analyzed and interpreted the data; L-FM managed the experiments, performed the partial experiments, and provided funding; FY designed the experiments and revised the manuscript.
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Cisse, EH.M., Zhang, LJ., Pu, YJ. et al. Exogenous Ca2+ Associated with Melatonin Alleviates Drought-Induced Damage in the Woody Tree Dalbergia odorifera. J Plant Growth Regul 41, 2359–2374 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-021-10449-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-021-10449-5