Daily heliotropic movements assist gas exchange and productive responses in DREB1A soybean plants under drought stress in the greenhouse

Abstract

Drought stress is one of the most severe environmental constraints on plant production. Under environmental pressures, complex daily heliotropic adjustments of leaflet angles in soybean can help to reduce transpiration losses by diminishing light interception (paraheliotropism), increase diurnal carbon gain in sparse canopies and reduce carbon gain in dense canopies by solar tracking (diaheliotropism). The plant materials studied were cultivar BR 16 and its genetically engineered isoline P58, ectopically overexpressing AtDREB1A, which is involved in abiotic stress responses. We aimed to follow the movements of central and lateral leaflets in vegetative stages V7-V10 and reproductive stages R4-R5, integrating the reversible morphogenetic changes into an estimate of daily plant photosynthesis using three-dimensional modeling, and to analyze the production parameters of BR 16 and P58. The patterns of daily movements of central leaflets of BR 16 in V7-V10 and R4-R5 were similar, expressing fewer diaheliotropic movements under drought stress than under non-limiting water conditions. Daily heliotropic patterns of lateral leaflets in V7-V10 and R4-R5 showed more diaheliotropic movements in drought-stressed P58 plants than in those grown under non-limiting water conditions. Leaf area in R4-R5 was generally higher in P58 than in BR 16. Drought significantly affected gas exchange and vegetative and reproductive architectural features. DREB1A could be involved in various responses to drought stress. Compared with the parental BR 16, P58 copes with drought through better compensation between diaheliotropic and paraheliotropic movements, finer tuning of water-use efficiency, a lower transpiration rate, higher leaf area and higher pod abortion to accomplish the maximum possible grain production under continued drought conditions.

LIDAR-Based Phenotyping for Drought Response and Drought Tolerance in Potato

“…6). Similar leaf movements have been found in other species and were linked to optimised photosynthesis, but also to a reduction of transpiration and the avoidance of photoinhibition and heat stress (Biskup et al 2007;Briglia et al 2019;Rakocevic et al 2018;van Zanten et al 2010;Werner et al 2001). The movement can be caused by hyponastic growth or turgor changes (van Zanten et al 2010).…”

“…In soybean, LA correlates to soil water potential (Rosa et al 1991). Water stress also changes the diaheliotropic movement of soybean leaflets (Rakocevic et al 2018). The LA increases under drought stress in maize and in potato (Kamphorst et al 2020;Xu et al 2021).…”

Coordinated mechanisms of leaves and roots in response to drought stress underlying full-length transcriptome profiling in Vicia sativa L

“…DREB1/CBF-type proteins belong to the (AP2/ERF)-type TF family and participate in the regulation of drought, heat and cold stress-responsive gene expression in soybean and Arabidopsis [81]. DREB1A could improve drought stress tolerance by regulating gas exchange and production traits in soybean [82]. The number of up-and downregulated genes among the four co-response ERF genes in common vetch was equal, and one transcript annotated as DREB1F (F01.…”

Progress in soybean functional genomics over the past decade

“…Overexpression of the LOS5/ABA3 gene, which encodes a molybdenum cofactor sulfurase, using a constitutive expression promoter in soybean enhanced drought tolerance and increased seed yield by at least 21% under drought stress (Li et al ., 2013a). Drought tolerance in soybean through foreign gene transformation was also achieved, such as the overexpression of rice cystatin oryzacystatin I ( OCI ), Arabidopsis DREB1A , and the sunflower transcription factor HB4 (Quain et al ., 2014; Rakocevic et al ., 2018; Ribichich et al ., 2020).…”