Abstract
Throughout evolution, plants have developed different strategies of responses and adaptations that allow them to survive in different conditions of abiotic stress. Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f. is a succulent CAM plant that can grow in warm, semi-arid, and arid regions. Here, we tested the effects of preconditioning treatments of water availability (100, 50, and 25% of soil field capacity, FC) on the response of A. vera to prolonged drought growing in the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Desert. We studied leaf biomass, biochemical traits, and photosynthetic traits to assess, at different intervals of time, the effects of the preconditioning treatments on the response of A. vera to seven months of water deprivation. As expected, prolonged drought has deleterious effects on plant growth (a decrease of 55–65% in leaf thickness) and photosynthesis (a decrease of 54–62% in Emax). There were differences in the morphophysiological responses to drought depending on the preconditioning treatment, the 50% FC pretreatment being the threshold to better withstand prolonged drought. A diurnal increase in the concentration of malic acid (20–30 mg mg−1) in the points where the dark respiration increased was observed, from which it can be inferred that A. vera switches its C3-CAM metabolism to a CAM idling mode. Strikingly, all A. vera plants stayed alive after seven months without irrigation. Possible mechanisms under an environmental context are discussed. Overall, because of a combination of morphophysiological traits, A. vera has the remarkable capacity to survive under severe and long-term drought, and further holistic research on this plant may serve to produce biotechnological solutions for crop production under the current scenario of climatic emergency.
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Prolonged drought decreased leaf thickness of Aloe vera by 55–65%.
Aloe veraNot reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“prolonged drought has deleterious effects on plant growth (a decrease of 55–65% in leaf thickness)”
t0“Aloe vera”
Claim · model-written summary
Prolonged drought decreased Emax, a photosynthesis measure, of Aloe vera by 54–62%.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“prolonged drought has deleterious effects on plant growth (a decrease of 55–65% in leaf thickness) and photosynthesis (a decrease of 54–62% in Emax)”
t0“Aloe vera”
Claim · model-written summary
The 50% FC preconditioning treatment helped Aloe vera withstand prolonged drought better than the other preconditioning treatments.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“There were differences in the morphophysiological responses to drought depending on the preconditioning treatment, the 50% FC pretreatment being the threshold to better withstand prolonged drought”
t0“Aloe vera”
Claim · model-written summary
Aloe vera showed a diurnal increase in malic acid concentration of 20–30 mg mg−1.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“A diurnal increase in the concentration of malic acid (20–30 mg mg−1)”
t0“Aloe vera”
Claim · model-written summary
Aloe vera switches from C3-CAM metabolism to a CAM idling mode, inferred from the diurnal malic acid increase.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“A diurnal increase in the concentration of malic acid (20–30 mg mg−1) in the points where the dark respiration increased was observed, from which it can be inferred that A. vera switches its C3-CAM metabolism to a CAM idling mode”
Claim · model-written summary
All Aloe vera plants stayed alive after seven months without irrigation.
Not reportedDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“Strikingly, all A. vera plants stayed alive after seven months without irrigation”
The same questions in other papers
drought · growth · Aloe vera (aloe-vera)Results agree
3 papers in the same direction as this paper
- negative
- negative
- negative
Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.