Integration of morphological, physiological and metabolic responses of oat roots for drought tolerance

Abstract

Drought is one of the major environmental factors determining plant yield. Tolerance to this abiotic stress is a complex phenomenon comprising a number of physio-biochemical processes including fine sensing of the stress, complex orchestration of signaling pathways, root-shoot communication and reprogramming of metabolite fluxes. In previous work we performed several physiological and metabolomic approaches to identify leaf responses engaged to cope with drought (Sánchez-Martín et al., 2012, 2015). Here, we started to dissect the root responses at severallevels to integrate root and aerial responses to drought and hence to reach a better understanding of the complexity of the tolerance mechanisms to this abiotic stress. To this aim we used two oat genotypes, Flega and Patones, previously characterized as highly susceptible and tolerant to drought. During time courses of increasing water deficit, samples were taken to determine in drought-stressed and control plants 1) morphological parameters including changes in root length and diameter, 2) physiological parameters related with water transport and 3) metabolomics changes indicating engagement of particular metabolic pathways as tolerant responses.