Photosynthetic responses of four dominant species to environmental gradient along the oasis-desert ecotone of Minqin, China

Abstract

Abstract: The vegetation of the oasis-desert ecotone plays an important role in the desertification control, therefore the evaluation of the dominant plant growth and health is very important. The photosynthetic characteristics of four dominant plant species (i.e. Nitraria tangutorum, Phragmites communis, Haloxylon ammodendron and Calligonum mongolicum) in four different distributing sites along the oasis-desert ecotone (i.e. section 1, section 2, section 3, section 4 from the oasis to the desert) were investigated in this study. The water content, chlorophyll content of four species decreased gradually while the carotenoids content increased gradually along the oasis-desert ecotone, showed that four plant species suffered from the different extent of drought stress. The photosynthetic capacity of four plant species decreased gradually along the gradient of the ecotone, while the decreasing extent was different [the decrease of N. tangutorum was the least, H. ammodendron and P. communis were biggist, while the photosynthetic capacity of C. mongolicum was higher in the section 1 (the margin of oasis) and section 3]. The variational trend of stomatal conductance (Gs) in the four plant species was the same as the variational trend of photosynthetic capacity, but there were different with the trend of transpiration rate (E) and water use efficiency (WUE). The WUE of N. tangutorum and P. communis were highest in the section 2, C. mongolicum was highest in the section 3, while the WUE of H. ammodendron decreased gradually along the ecotone. In addition, the variational trend of chlorophyll fluorescence parameters (F_v/F_m and F_o) of four plant species indicated that the H. ammodendron occurred the long-term photoinhibition and photodamage along the ecotone, while the N. tangutorum was not influence, and that the C. mongolicum and P. communis only suffered from serious stress in the section 4 (i.e. the margin of desert). In conclusion, all our results suggested that the N. tangutorum adapt to the drought conditions of oasis-desert ecotone more than C. mongolicum and P. communis, while the adaptive capacity of H. ammodendron was the worst in the four plant species.

CLC Number:

Q945.11

TIAN Xin-min, ZHAO Chang-ming, DENG Jian-ming, ZHANG Xiao-wei, CHEN Tuo, REN Jia-wen, WANG Gen-xuan. Photosynthetic responses of four dominant species to environmental gradient along the oasis-desert ecotone of Minqin, China[J]. Acta Prataculturae Sinica, 2011, 20(4): 108-115.

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