An american legume, Prosopis strombulifera, as new model for understanding extreme salt tolerance

REGINATO , MARIANA ANDREA; SGROY, VERÓNICA; LLANES, ANALÍA SUSANA; CASSÁN, FABRICIO; LUNA, MARÍA VIRGINIA

Valencia, España

Congreso; Global Forum on Salinization and Climate Change, GFSCC2010; 2010

Universidad de Valencia en conjunto con la FAO

The shrub Prosopis strombulifera (Lam) Benth is distributed from the Arizona desert(U.S.A) to Patagonia (Argentina) and is especially abundant in the salinized areas of central Argentina. This species showed a halophytic response to NaCl surviving up to 1M NaCl in in vitro experiments, but a strong growth inhibition at lower Na2SO4 concentrations. These differential responses to the most abundant salts present in most salinized soils make this species an excellent model to study salt-tolerance mechanisms in halophytic plants. This work provides an overview of different salt tolerance mechanisms in the native halophyte Prosopis strombulifera, which may be considered a useful new tool to improve crop salt tolerance through two biotechnological strategies: considering P. strombulifera as a natural gene donor to improve genetic salt tolerance of low tolerant crops, and considering this species and its rhizosphere as a natural source of Plant Stress Homeostasis-regulating Rhizobacteria (PSHR) capable of improving salt tolerance in crops.