@article{YE2025, 
author = {Tiantian YE and Jilin ZUO and Wencai ZHOU and Wangen LI and Jianjian HUANG},
title = {Effects of drought and rehydration treatment on the growth, photosynthesis and physiological characteristics of three Camellia oleifera cultivars},
year = {2025},
journal = {Journal of Central South University of Forestry & Technology},
volume = {45},
number = {11},
pages = {42-54},
keywords = {Camellia oleifera, drought stress, rehydration treatment, photosynthesis, physiological responses},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.14067/j.cnki.1673-923x.2025.11.005},
doi = {10.14067/j.cnki.1673-923x.2025.11.005},
abstract = {【Objective】To explore the changes of leaf anatomy, photosynthetic characteristics and other physiological indexes of Camellia oleifera under drought stress and rehydration, so as to provide a reference for the study of drought tolerance mechanism and the breeding of drought-tolerant cultivars of C. oleifera.【Method】Three cultivars of C. oleifera ‘Ganxing 48’, ‘Ganwu 1’ and ‘Changlin 53’ two year old seedlings which were mainly promoted in Jiangxi C. oleifera production area were used as experimental materials. Pot water control was used to simulate drought stress and rehydration test. The growth of C. oleifera, photosynthetic parameters, leaf anatomical structure and related physicochemical indexes of the three C. oleifera cultivars were measured at 0, 10 days of drought and 10 days of rehydration, and the drought resistance of the three C. oleifera cultivars was comprehensively evaluated by principal component analysis and membership function analysis.【Result】Under drought stress, all cultivars of C. oleifera plants exhibited wilting phenomena such as leaf curling and branch drooping, leaf thickness (LT), upper (UT) and lower epidermal thickness (UCT), organizational tightness (CTR) and root vigor decreased to varying degrees, and the cuticle layer (LUT) increased significantly. Compared with the drought for 0 days, the net photosynthetic rate (Pn), transpiration rate (Tr) and stomatal conductance (Gs) of ‘Changlin 53’ decreased the most after 10 days of drought, which were 64.15%, 66.6% and 65.32%, respectively. The decreases of Pn, Tr and Gs of ‘Ganwu 1’ were the smallest and significantly higher than those of other cultivars. According to the variation trend of Pn, Tr and Gs of each cultivar during the drought process, it can be seen that the Pn, decline of ‘Ganwu 1’ and ‘Ganxing 48’ was limited by stomatal factors, while the Pn, decline of ‘Changlin 53’ was affected by non-stomatal factors. In terms of physiological characteristics, drought stress led to a significant decrease in root vigor and chlorophyll (Chl) content, while leaf relative conductivity (REC), malondialdehyde (MDA) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activities, soluble sugar (SS), soluble protein (SP) content and abscisic acid (ABA) content increased significantly. Among them, the contents of MDA and SS increased (19.85% and 67.31%) and had the highest content (120.82 nmol·g-1 and 94.23 mg·g-1), and the content of SOD increased the most (40.21%) but the lowest (765.21 μg·g-1). ‘Ganxing 48’ had the highest POD and ABA contents and the largest increases, increasing by 40.21% and 11.77 times. After 10 days of rehydration, the leaf anatomy, Chl content, POD and SOD activity, soluble sugar and MDA content of the three C. oleifera seedlings basically returned to normal levels, while the root activity showed an overcompensating effect, and the contents of REC, soluble protein and ABA in leaves were significantly higher than the normal levels. There were differences in the degree of recovery of photosynthetic characteristics of different cultivars of C. oleifera, among which the Pn, Gs and Tr of ‘Changlin 53’ were still significantly lower than the normal levels, while the Pn, Gs and Tr of the other two C. oleifera cultivars basically returned to normal levels. The comprehensive evaluation scores of each cultivar are as follows: ‘Ganwu 1’ > ‘Ganxing 48’ > ‘Changlin 53’.【Conclusion】C. oleifera seedlings have a certain drought resistance. During the process of drought stress and rehydration treatment, there were obvious differences in the growth, photosynthetic characteristics and physiological indexes of different cultivars of C. oleifera seedlings. Through the comprehensive evaluation of various indicators, it was concluded that ‘Ganwu 1’ had strong drought resistance, followed by ‘Ganxing 48’ and ‘Changlin 53’.}
}