Abstract
In arid natural habitats, shrubs are subjected to heterogeneous stressful environmental conditions such as high temperatures, salinity, and drought. It is important to study how native and endemic shrubs respond to these stresses at the germination stage in order to understand these species’ strategies of adaptation to the desert environment. For this purpose, we studied germination of psammohalophyte seeds in conditions of abiotic stress caused by different temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 °C), different salt concentrations (0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 mM NaCl), and different water potential values (−0.3, −0.5, −1, −3, and −7 MPa, achieved with use of polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG6000)) in comparison with control conditions. The final germination percentages and germination speeds of seeds of the following six psammohalophytes were tested: Oudneya africana, Helianthemum lippii, Genista saharae, Retama raetam, Peganum harmala, and Zygophyllum album. The results showed that the degree of response to different temperatures varied between species. The optimal germination temperatures for different species’ seeds ranged from 15 °C to 35 °C. The presence of PEG6000 and NaCl caused decreases in germination percentages and germination speeds in O. africana, R. raetam, P. harmala, and Z. album, whereas G. saharae showed a good response to salinity, with an average final germination percentage of 72.71 ± 6.26% and an average germination speed of 5.18 ± 0.44% day−1. H. lippii behaved in the same way with drought stress (with an average germination percentage of 88.83 ± 0.93% and a very fast germination speed of 6.34 ± 0.06% day−1) as it did with salinity stress (with an average germination percentage of 70.14 ± 5.40% and a germination speed of 4.94 ± 0.38% day−1). In general, H. lippii and G. saharae seeds seemed to be the most resistant to these abiotic constraints. Seed germination of the other species occurred only when these constraints were removed, thereby increasing the chances of seedling survival, which was remarkable in the natural environments they inhabit.
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Trabelsi, H., Kherraze, M.E. (2020). Effects of Abiotic Stress on Seed Germination of Some Algerian Sahara Psammohalophyte Species. In: Grigore, MN. (eds) Handbook of Halophytes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17854-3_84-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17854-3_84-1
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