Journal of Environmental Biology

Reaumuria soongorica-plant model to understand drought adaptive mechanisms of xerophyte and their potentials in improving stress tolerance in plants

Y.M. Ma¹, R.X. Liu¹, S.S. Wang¹ and F. Han²*   

¹College of Desert Control Science and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China, 010 010

²College of Grassland Resources and Environment,  Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China, 010 010

*Corresponding Author Email : hfnmd@imau.edu.cn                  *ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6836-2399

Received: 16.08.2022                                                                                                      Revised: 03.10.2022                                                                            Accepted: 19.11.2022

Abstract

Reaumuria soongorica plays critical role in withstanding wind-induced soil erosion and combating desertification due to its unique drought adaptive networks involved in physiological, morphological, biochemical, and molecular biological levels. This review was conceived to summarize the most updated information on drought adaptive mechanisms of R. soongorica to formulate valuable strategies for non-xerophytes crop species to be drought tolerant. Research indicates that R. soongorica can be drought resistant via posing a high root to shoot ratio, having salt secreting gland, subsidized stomata, hard leaf texture, pallet leaf shape, high seeds viability, actively working antioxidative enzymes, secondary metabolites, phytohormones, and differentially expressed drought resistant genes. These characteristics interlink at morpho-physiological, biochemical, metobolic, molecular, and genetic level in R. soongorica to adapt the extreme abitotic stress conditions in desert regions as a plant model in xerophyte.

The potentials of using the genetic elements in R. soongorica to produce drought tolerant crop species for yield production on growing on marginal lands could be vital for maintaining future food security. However, functional gene cloning and their transformation in crop species should be conducted as pre-requisite.

Key words: Abiotic stress, Crop improvement, Drought adaptive mechanisms, Reaumuria soongorica, Xerophytes

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