No abstract

Plants are subjected to various types of environmental stresses throughout their lifecycle. It has been found that plants are able to communicate with the neighbouring plants under stress conditions through volatile organic compounds. These volatiles act as signals for the neighbouring plants thus preparing them for the upcoming stress, a phenomenon known as priming. So, the present study explores the effects of salt stress on cotton plants and the resultant induction of priming in the nearby plants. For this purpose, salt tolerant cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) variety was used. Two concentration levels, 100 mM, and 150 mM of salt were used to study the impacts of the stress. The experiment was divided into two steps for each treatment. In the first step, a set of plants (emitters) was given salt stress. The second set of plants (receivers) was placed adjacent to the stressed plants (emitters), while the third set of plants was placed separately as a control for both the treatments. Various physiological and morphological parameters were measured at the beginning and the end of the first step. In the second step, the receiver plants now termed as "primed" were given the same levels of stress while a new set of non-primed plants was placed near the primed plants. These non-primed plants were now treated with 100mM and 150mM of NaCl respectively and the results were compared. The results show that plants were able to get signals from neighbouring stressed plants. Plants responded by altering morphology and physiology to prepare themselves for future stress conditions.

Current analysis were performed to investigate the activity of various digestive enzymes, such as lipases, proteases and amylases in gut and their relationship to the other morphometric variables in a wild marine fish, Terapon jarbua. The descriptive data of the studied traits included fish weight, fish total length, gut weight, gut length, relative gut length, relative gut mass, Fulton’s condition factor, standard length and Zihler’s index. Gut length showed positive correlation with fish total length and gut weight, relative gut length (RGL) showed positive correlation with gut length. Relative gut mass (RGM) also showed positive correlation with total length (TL), gut weight (GW) and gut length (GL). Fulton’s condition factor showed positive correlation with fish weight, while negative correlation with fish total length and relative gut mass. Standard length displayed positive correlation with gut weight and gut length while, it showed negative correlation with Fulton’s factor. Zihler’s Index displayed positive correlation with gut length, RGL and Zihler’s RGM while, while showed negative correlation with Fulton’s factor and fish weight. Lipase showed negative correlation with gut weight. Amylase and protease activity have no correlation with other studied traits. Lipase activity displayed negative significant correlation with gut weight. Lipase activity showed significantly negative effect on gut-weight. Amylase activity on y-axis (PC2) contributed 13% in variation but not significantly correlated with first two principal components. It showed non-significant negative correlation with fish weight, fish length and Fulton’s factor while positive but not-significant correlation with other traits. Protease has positive and non-significant correlation with fish weight, RGL, Fulton’s factor, lipase and amylase while non-significant negative correlation with all other traits.