scholarly journals River basin salinization as a form of aridity

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (30) ◽  
pp. 17635-17642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saverio Perri ◽  
Samir Suweis ◽  
Alex Holmes ◽  
Prashanth R. Marpu ◽  
Dara Entekhabi ◽  
...  

Soil-salinization affects, to a different extent, more than one-third of terrestrial river basins (estimate based on the Food and Agriculture Organization Harmonized World Soil Database, 2012). Among these, many are endorheic and ephemeral systems already encompassing different degrees of aridity, land degradation, and vulnerability to climate change. The primary effect of salinization is to limit plant water uptake and evapotranspiration, thereby reducing available soil moisture and impairing soil fertility. In this, salinization resembles aridity and—similarly to aridity—may impose significant controls on hydrological partitioning and the strength of land–vegetation–atmosphere interactions at the catchment scale. However, the long-term impacts of salinization on the terrestrial water balance are still largely unquantified. Here, we introduce a modified Budyko’s framework explicitly accounting for catchment-scale salinization and species-specific plant salt tolerance. The proposed framework is used to interpret the water-budget data of 237 Australian catchments—29% of which are already severely salt-affected—from the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP). Our results provide theoretical and experimental evidence that salinization does influence the hydrological partitioning of salt-affected watersheds, imposing significant constraints on water availability and enhancing aridity. The same approach can be applied to estimate salinization level and vegetation salt tolerance at the basin scale, which would be difficult to assess through classical observational techniques. We also demonstrate that plant salt tolerance has a preeminent role in regulating the feedback of vegetation on the soil water budget of salt-affected basins.

Author(s):  
Lina Zhao ◽  
Furong Zhang ◽  
Bin Liu ◽  
Senlin Yang ◽  
Xue Xiong ◽  
...  

Abstract The growth and development of melon (Cucumis melo L.) are severely affected by soil salinization in many areas of the world, but the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying salt tolerance in melon remains limited. In this study, a new RAV (related to ABI3/VP1) gene, CmRAV1, was identified in melon. Protein structure homology analysis revealed that CmRAV1 contains an AP2 domain and a B3 domain, and subcellular localization assay revealed that CmRAV1 is localized in the nucleus. The transcript level of CmRAV1 was closely correlated with NaCl treatment, and the expression pattern of CmRAV1 differed between two cultivars (salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive cultivars) under NaCl treatment. In addition, yeasts transformed with CmRAV1 showed notably improved growth on medium containing 200 mM NaCl compared with wild-type ones. The overexpression of CmRAV1 in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana resulted in enhanced salt tolerance at the seed germination and seedling growth stages. This study demonstrated that the expression of CmRAV1 was associated with saline stress and can potentially be utilized to improve plant salt tolerance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 546-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglu Sun ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Lianshuang Fu ◽  
Peng Qin ◽  
Tong Li ◽  
...  

Soil salinization is an important threat to wheat growth and production. Previous transcriptome analysis showed that the expression of the betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (BADH) gene differed significantly between cultivars with strong or weak salinity tolerance. Herein, the BADH gene from the wheat cultivar Dongnongdongmai 1 was cloned and transformed into wild-type Arabidopsis to identify its function in salt tolerance. Root length was calculated at 0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 mmol L−1 NaCl for 7 d. The relative electrolytic leakage (REL), GB content, and BADH activity were measured at 150 mmol L−1 NaCl for 1 and 3 d. It was determined that BADH activity and the GB content of TaBADH-overexpressed transgenic (TaBADHOE) lines were significantly higher than in wild-type lines. Salt stress analysis showed that the root length of TaBADHOE lines 4, 18, and 19 were 0.44, 0.54, and 0.35 cm, respectively, which were significantly longer than the 0.24 cm roots of the wild-type line in the media containing 150 mmol L−1 NaCl for 7 d. In addition, the RELs of transgenic lines 4, 18, and 19 were 0.37, 0.33, and 0.42, respectively, which is significantly lower than the 0.63 of the wild-type line in media containing 150 mmol L−1 NaCl for 3 d. These results demonstrate that TaBADH significantly increased plant salt tolerance, indicating that genetic transformation of TaBADH may be an effective and sustainable breeding method for increasing salt tolerance in wheat cultivars.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyue Yu ◽  
Yu Pan ◽  
Yan Dong ◽  
Bin Lu ◽  
Chao Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background As important forest tree species, biological stress and soil salinization are important factors that restrict the growth of Populus × euramericana. WRKYs are important transcription factors in plants that can regulate plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, PeWRKY31 was isolated from Populus × euramericana, and its bioinformation, salt resistance and insect resistance were analyzed. This study aims to provide guidance for producing salt-resistant and insect-resistant poplars. Results PeWRKY31 has a predicted open reading frame (ORF) of 1842 bp that encodes 613 amino acids. The predicted protein is the unstable, acidic, and hydrophilic protein with a molecular weight of 66.34 kDa, and it has numerous potential phosphorylation sites, chiefly on serines and threonines. PeWRKY31 is a zinc-finger C2H2 type-II WRKY TF that is closely related to WRKY TFs of Populus tomentosa, and localizes to the nucleus. A PeWRKY31 overexpression vector was constructed and transformed into Nicotiana tabacum L. Overexpression of PeWRKY31 improved the salt tolerance and insect resistance of the transgenic tobacco. Transcriptome sequencing and KEGG enrichment analysis showed the elevated expression of genes related to glutathione metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction, and MAPK signaling pathways, the functions of which were important in plant salt tolerance and insect resistance in the overexpressing tobacco line. Conclusions PeWRKY31 was isolated from Populus × euramericana. Overexpression of PeWRKY31 improved the resistance of transgenic plant to salt stress and pest stress. The study provides references for the generation of stress-resistant lines with potentially great economic benefit.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1521-1533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew B. Switanek ◽  
Peter A. Troch ◽  
Christopher L. Castro

Abstract In a water-stressed region, such as the southwestern United States, it is essential to improve current seasonal hydroclimatic predictions. Typically, seasonal hydroclimatic predictions have been conditioned by standard climate indices, for example, Niño-3 and Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). In this work, the statistically unique relationships between sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and particular basins’ hydroclimates are explored. The regions where global SSTs are most correlated with the Little Colorado River and Gunnison River basins’ hydroclimates are located throughout the year and at varying time lags. The SSTs, from these regions of highest correlation, are subsequently used as hydroclimatic predictors for the two basins. This methodology, named basin-specific climate prediction (BSCP), is further used to perform hindcasts. The hydroclimatic hindcasts obtained using BSCP are shown to be closer to the historical record, for both basins, than using the standard climate indices as predictors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 3412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenjuan Shao ◽  
Lisha Zhang ◽  
Iain Wilson ◽  
Deyou Qiu

Soil salinization is a matter of concern worldwide. It can eventually lead to the desertification of land and severely damage local agricultural production and the ecological environment. Betula halophila is a tree with high salt tolerance, so it is of importance to understand and discover the salt responsive genes of B. halophila for breeding salinity resistant varieties of trees. However, there is no report on the transcriptome in response to salt stress in B. halophila. Using Illumina sequencing platform, approximately 460 M raw reads were generated and assembled into 117,091 unigenes. Among these unigenes, 64,551 unigenes (55.12%) were annotated with gene descriptions, while the other 44.88% were unknown. 168 up-regulated genes and 351 down-regulated genes were identified, respectively. These Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) involved in multiple pathways including the Salt Overly Sensitive (SOS) pathway, ion transport and uptake, antioxidant enzyme, ABA signal pathway and so on. The gene ontology (GO) enrichments suggested that the DEGs were mainly involved in a plant-type cell wall organization biological process, cell wall cellular component, and structural constituent of cell wall molecular function. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment showed that the top-four enriched pathways were ‘Fatty acid elongation’, ‘Ribosome’, ‘Sphingolipid metabolism’ and ‘Flavonoid biosynthesis’. The expression patterns of sixteen DEGs were analyzed by qRT-PCR to verify the RNA-seq data. Among them, the transcription factor AT-Hook Motif Nuclear Localized gene and dehydrins might play an important role in response to salt stress in B. halophila. Our results provide an important gene resource to breed salt tolerant plants and useful information for further elucidation of the molecular mechanism of salt tolerance in B. halophila.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Eiji Maeda ◽  
Xuanlong Ma ◽  
Fabien Wagner ◽  
Hyungjun Kim ◽  
Taikan Oki ◽  
...  

Abstract. Evapotranspiration (ET) of Amazon forests is a main driver of regional climate patterns and an important indicator of ecosystem functioning. Despite its importance, the seasonal variability of ET over Amazon forests, and its relationship with environmental drivers, is still poorly understood. In this study, we carry out a water balance approach to analyse seasonal patterns in ET and their relationships with water and energy drivers over five sub-basins across the Amazon basin. We used in-situ measurements of river discharge, and remotely sensed estimates of terrestrial water storage, rainfall, and solar radiation. We show that the characteristics of ET seasonality in all sub-basins differ in timing and magnitude. The highest mean annual ET was found in the northern Rio Negro basin (~ 1497 mm year−1) and the lowest values in the Solimões River basin (~ 986 mm year−1). For the first time in a basin-scale study, using observational data, we show that factors limiting ET vary across climatic gradients in the Amazon, confirming local-scale eddy covariance studies. Both annual mean and seasonality in ET are driven by a combination of energy and water availability, as neither rainfall nor radiation alone could explain patterns in ET. In southern basins, despite seasonal rainfall deficits, deep root water uptake allows increasing rates of ET during the dry season, when radiation is usually higher than in the wet season. We demonstrate contrasting ET seasonality with satellite greenness across Amazon forests, with strong asynchronous relationships in ever-wet watersheds, and positive correlations observed in seasonally dry watersheds. Finally, we compared our results with estimates obtained by two ET models, and we conclude that neither of the two tested models could provide a consistent representation of ET seasonal patterns across the Amazon.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 649-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. de Rooij

Abstract. The increasing importance of catchment-scale and basin-scale models of the hydrological cycle makes it desirable to have a simple, yet physically realistic model for lateral subsurface water flow. As a first building block towards such a model, analytical solutions are presented for horizontal groundwater flow to surface waters held at prescribed water levels for aquifers with parallel and radial flow. The solutions are valid for a wide array of initial and boundary conditions and additions or withdrawals of water, and can handle discharge into as well as lateral infiltration from the surface water. Expressions for the average hydraulic head, the flux to or from the surface water, and the aquifer-scale hydraulic conductivity are developed to provide output at the scale of the modelled system rather than just point-scale values. The upscaled conductivity is time-variant. It does not depend on the magnitude of the flux but is determined by medium properties as well as the external forcings that drive the flow. For the systems studied, with lateral travel distances not exceeding 10 m, the circular aquifers respond very differently from the infinite-strip aquifers. The modelled fluxes are sensitive to the magnitude of the storage coefficient. For phreatic aquifers a value of 0.2 is argued to be representative, but considerable variations are likely. The effect of varying distributions over the day of recharge damps out rapidly; a soil water model that can provide accurate daily totals is preferable over a less accurate model hat correctly estimates the timing of recharge peaks.


2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (8) ◽  
pp. 1829-1841 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guochun Wu ◽  
Sha Li ◽  
Xiaochuan Li ◽  
Yunhong Liu ◽  
Shuangshuang Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract Alternative oxidase (AOX) has been reported to be involved in mitochondrial function and redox homeostasis, thus playing an essential role in plant growth as well as stress responses. However, its biological functions in nonseed plants have not been well characterized. Here, we report that AOX participates in plant salt tolerance regulation in moss Physcomitrella patens (P. patens). AOX is highly conserved and localizes to mitochondria in P. patens. We observed that PpAOX rescued the impaired cyanide (CN)-resistant alternative (Alt) respiratory pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) aox1a mutant. PpAOX transcription and Alt respiration were induced upon salt stress in P. patens. Using homologous recombination, we generated PpAOX-overexpressing lines (PpAOX OX). PpAOX OX plants exhibited higher Alt respiration and lower total reactive oxygen species accumulation under salt stress condition. Strikingly, we observed that PpAOX OX plants displayed decreased salt tolerance. Overexpression of PpAOX disturbed redox homeostasis in chloroplasts. Meanwhile, chloroplast structure was adversely affected in PpAOX OX plants in contrast to wild-type (WT) P. patens. We found that photosynthetic activity in PpAOX OX plants was also lower compared with that in WT. Together, our work revealed that AOX participates in plant salt tolerance in P. patens and there is a functional link between mitochondria and chloroplast under challenging conditions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 4577-4588 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pan ◽  
E. F. Wood

Abstract. The process whereby the spatially distributed runoff (generated through saturation/infiltration excesses, subsurface flow, etc.) travels over the hillslope and river network and becomes streamflow is generally referred to as "routing". In short, routing is a runoff-to-streamflow process, and the streamflow in rivers is the response to runoff integrated in both time and space. Here we develop a methodology to invert the routing process, i.e., to derive the spatially distributed runoff from streamflow (e.g., measured at gauge stations) by inverting an arbitrary linear routing model using fixed interval smoothing. We refer to this streamflow-to-runoff process as "inverse routing". Inversion experiments are performed using both synthetically generated and real streamflow measurements over the Ohio River basin. Results show that inverse routing can effectively reproduce the spatial field of runoff and its temporal dynamics from sufficiently dense gauge measurements, and the inversion performance can also be strongly affected by low gauge density and poor data quality. The runoff field is the only component in the terrestrial water budget that cannot be directly measured, and all previous studies used streamflow measurements in its place. Consequently, such studies are limited to scales where the spatial and temporal difference between the two can be ignored. Inverse routing provides a more sophisticated tool than traditional methods to bridge this gap and infer fine-scale (in both time and space) details of runoff from aggregated measurements. Improved handling of this final gap in terrestrial water budget analysis may potentially help us to use space-borne altimetry-based surface water measurements for cross-validating, cross-correcting, and assimilation with other space-borne water cycle observations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document