Grass under pressure
Home » Drought strategies in perennial forage species

Drought strategies in perennial forage species

Cell membrane stability, which ensures dehydration tolerance of roots and meristems, is positively and negatively correlated to fructan and sucrose contents, respectively.

Severe droughts are expected to increase with climate change and to limit grassland perennity.

Grass under pressure

Zwicke et al. investigate the plant strategies involved in drought survival and recovery of six temperate herbaceous species in semi-controlled conditions and show that cell membrane stability, which ensures dehydration tolerance of roots and meristems, is positively and negatively correlated to fructan and sucrose contents, respectively. Species that survive and recover best combine high resource acquisition in spring and both high dehydration avoidance and tolerance strategies. The results suggest that most of the native forage species studied are able to survive and recover from extreme drought, but with various time lags, which emphasizes the need to assess recovery after drought over a relatively long time scale.

This article appears in the special issue Plants and Climate Change.

botanyone

The Annals of Botany Office is based at the University of Oxford.

Read this in your language

The Week in Botany

On Monday mornings we send out a newsletter of the links that have been catching the attention of our readers on Twitter and beyond. You can sign up to receive it below.

@BotanyOne on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed...

Audio


Archive