Physiological assessment in young Brazilian and African mahogany plants during the dry and rainy seasons in northeastern Para state, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Raimundo Lazaro Moraes da
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Santos Filho, Benedito Gomes dos, Costa, Roberto Cezar Lobo da, Viégas, Ismael de Jesus Matos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Ciências Agrárias (Belém. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ajaes.ufra.edu.br/index.php/ajaes/article/view/915

  Because of their high commercial value and international market acceptance, mahogany species have been indiscriminately explored even in protected areas, resulting in extinction threat. In this study, we aimed to assess the physiology of young plants of Brazilian (Swietenia macrophylla (King)) and African (Khaya ivorensis A. Chev.) mahogany regarding their drought tolerance. The species analyzed showed different responses in the behavior of variables in the two periods studied. The highest values of stomatal conductance (gs) and transpiration (E) were observed in the rainy season because of excess of soil water; while in the dry season, deficit of soil water caused gs reduction of 90% in 2006 and 75% in 2007, and E reduction of 80% and 60%, respectively, for the same periods. The dry season, with lower values of leaf water potential and leaf relative water content, induced higher levels of sucrose, proline and total soluble amino acids compared to the rainy season, indicating emergence of the mechanism of osmoregulation in the studied species.