Introducing the halophyte Salicornia europaea to investigate combined impact of salt and tidal submergence conditions

Abstract

Tolerance mechanisms to single abiotic stress events are being investigated in different plant species, but how plants deal with multiple stress factors occurring simultaneously is still poorly understood. Here, we introduce Salicornia europaea as a species with an extraordinary tolerance level to both flooding and high salt concentrations. Plants exposed to 0.5 M NaCl (mimicking sea water concentrations) grew larger than plants not exposed to salt. Adding more salt reduced growth, but concentrations up to 2.5 M NaCl were not lethal. Regular tidal flooding with salt water (0.5 M NaCl) did not affect growth or chlorophyll fluorescence, whereas continuous flooding stopped growth while plants survived. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis of plants exposed to 1% oxygen in air revealed induction of selected hypoxia responsive genes, but these genes were not induced during tidal flooding, suggesting that S. europaea did not experience hypoxic stress. Indeed, plants were able to transport oxygen into waterlogged soil. Interestingly, sequential exposure to salt and hypoxic air changed the expression of several but not all genes as compared to their expression upon hypoxia only, demonstrating the potential to use S. europaea to investigate signalling-crosstalk between tolerance reactions to multiple environmental perturbations.