Insights into the physiological responses of the facultative halophyte Aeluropus littoralis to the combined effects of salinity and phosphorus availability created by Ons Talbi Zribi, Zouhaier Barhoumi, Saber Kouas, Mohamed Ghandour, Ines Slama and Chedly Abdelly

In this work, we investigate the physiological responses to P deficiency (5 μM KH2PO4 = D), salt stress (400 mM NaCl = C + S), and their combination (D + S) on the facultative halophyte Aeluropus littoralis to understand how plants adapt to these combined stresses. When individually applied, both P deficiency and salinity significantly restricted whole plant growth, with a more marked effect of the latter stress. However, the effects of the two stresses were not additive in plant biomass production since the response of plants to combined salinity and P deficiency was similar to that of plants grown under salt stress alone. In addition the observed features under salinity alone are kept when plants are simultaneously subjected to the combined effects of salinity and P deficiency such as biomass partitioning; the synthesis of proline and the K+/Na+ selectivity ratio. Thus, increasing P availability under saline conditions has no significant effect on salt tolerance in this species.