Hormonal and physiological changes driven by fungal endophytes increase Antarctic plant performance under UV-B radiation

PATRICIO RAMOS; NATALI RIVAS; STEPHAN POLLMANN; PAULA CASATI; MARCO A. MOLINA-MONTENEGRO

FUNGAL ECOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018

1754-5048

Antarctic environments are amongst the most stressful habitats for life on Earth, with high intensities ofsolar UV-B radiation reaching the land surface. In this study, we evaluated how the photochemical efficiency,cell damage and reproductive biomass of Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis) wereaffected by different intensities of UV-B radiation in the absence and presence of fungal endophytes. Inaddition, we evaluated the hormonal content of plants at different UV-B radiation intensities and howhormonal content was affected by endophytes. Overall, plants exposed to UV-B radiation showed highernumbers of flowers, higher total biomass and lower lipid peroxidation in the presence of endophytescompared with plants without endophytes. Photochemical efficiency was unaffected. Fungal endophytesaffected the content of salicylic acid, jasmonate, indole-3-acetate and abscisic acid in shoot tissue ofplants exposed to UV-B radiation. These results suggest that endophytes could modulate the hormonalcontent of C. quitensis to improve its ecophysiological performance under high UV-B radiation.