ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1662491
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Crop Resilience to Salt StressView all 7 articles
Salinity tolerance in the halophyte species Cakile maritima from the Apulia region, Southern Italy
Provisionally accepted
- University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy
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Cakile marittima is a succulent halophyte from the Brassicaceae family, commonly found along sandy coasts of the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Understanding response mechanisms to sodium excess is crucial for its exploitation under sustainable biosaline farming or saline environments. For the first time, this research aims to investigate the pinnatifid C. maritima population from the Apulia region (Italy) grown under varying levels of NaCl (0 -T0, 100 -T100 and 400 -T400 mM NaCl). The T100 plants showed higher leaf area (LA) and specific leaf area (SLA) compared to T0, with a slight reduction in succulence index (SI) while maintaining water content (WC) at leaf, stem and root levels. In T400 plants, a reduction in shoot and root fresh weight and WC, in leaf dry weight, LA, and SLA, while increasing SI and dry matter concentration, was observed compared to those of T100. No changes were detected in Na and Cl concentrations in T100 and T400 leaves, whereas in the T400 treatment, Na accumulation occurred in the stems. The leaf concentrations of K, Mg and Ca in T0, T100 and T400 plants remained stable. The operating efficiency of PSII in the light (ΦPSII) was similar in both salineand non-salinetreated plants. Specifically, in salt-exposed plants, the decrease of the maximum PSII efficiency in the light (Fv'/Fm') was counteracted by the improvement of the PSII efficiency factor (qP) with carotenoids and anthocyanins seeming to be involved in a photosynthetic apparatus protective strategy. Salt-exposed plants maintained stomata opening (gs and transpiration similar to T0), allowing a higher CO2 assimilation rate (An), especially in T100 plants. Despite the An not appearing compromised by higher salinity, T400 plants exhibited a reduction at the canopy level of photosynthesis due to a lower LA, leading to reduced shoot growth (dry biomass production). Among antioxidant compounds, in addition to anthocyanins, ascorbic acid appeared to be effective in improving the antioxidative defence of T400 plants.
Keywords: Sea rocket, Leaf gas exchanges, Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Cations, chlorophylls, Phenols, Ascorbic Acid, antioxidant capacity
Received: 09 Jul 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Conversa, Botticella, Lazzizera, Bonasia, Duri and Elia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Giulia Conversa, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy
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