The Impacts of Drought Stress and Phytophthora cinnamomi Infection on Short-Term Water Relations in Two Year-Old Eucalyptus obliqua

Abstract

The effects of drought stress, Phytophthora cinnamomi infection and their interaction on water relations and growth were examined for 28 days on two year-old potted trees of Eucalyptus obliqua (L’Hér.). There were significant effects of drought stress on plant photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, biomass accumulation, plant water potential at turgor loss point and the bulk modulus of elasticity. E. obliqua was successfully infected but the trees showed only mild symptoms. Infection with P. cinnamomi led to a significant reduction in the root biomass and root-to-shoot ratio in well-watered and droughted plants but did not impact water relations. There was no observable cumulative effect of drought and P. cinnamomi infection. There are multiple potential reasons why P. cinnamomi infection did not lead to drought-like symptoms in E. obliqua, including short experimental duration, delayed infection symptoms, potential resistance of E. obliqua and a possible lower aggressiveness of the P. cinnamomi strain. Hence, our results indicate that P. cinnamomi infection will not always lead to immediate short-term symptoms, and that plants that are mildly symptomatic respond very similar to drought stress compared to non-infected trees.