Stomatal and non-stomatal limitations are responsible in down-regulation of photosynthesis in melon plants grown under the saline condition: Application of carbon isotope discrimination as a reliable proxy

Abstract Salinity is one of the most severe environmental stresses limiting agricultural crop production worldwide. Photosynthesis is one of the main biochemical processes getting affected by such stress conditions. Here we investigated the stomatal and non-stomatal factors during photosynthesis in two Iranian melon genotypes “Ghobadlu” and “Suski-e-Sabz”, as well as the “Galia” F1 cultivar, with an insight into better understanding the physiological mechanisms involved in the response of melon plants to increasing salinity. After plants were established in the greenhouse, they were supplied with nutrient solutions containing three salinity levels (0, 50, or 100 mM NaCl) for 15 and 30 days. With increasing salinity, almost all of the measured traits (e.g. stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, internal to ambient CO 2 concentration ratio (C i /C a ), Rubisco and nitrate reductase activity, carbon isotope discrimination (Δ 13 C), chlorophyll content, relative water content (RWC), etc.) significantly decreased after 15 and 30 days of treatments. In contrast, the overall mean of water use efficiency (intrinsic and instantaneous WUE), leaf abscisic acid (ABA) and flavonol contents, as well as osmotic potential (Ψ S ), all increased remarkably with increasing stress, across all genotypes. In addition, notable correlations were found between Δ 13 C and leaf gas exchange parameters as well as most of the measured traits (e.g. leaf area, biomass, RWC, Ψ S , etc.), encouraging the possibility of using Δ 13 C as an important proxy for indirect selection of melon genotypes with higher photosynthetic capacity and higher salinity tolerance. The overall results suggest that both stomatal and non-stomatal limitations play an important role in reduced photosynthesis rate in melon genotypes studied under NaCl stress. This conclusion is supported by the concurrently increased resistance to CO 2 diffusion, and lower Rubisco activity under NaCl treatments at the two sampling dates, and this was revealed by the appearance of lower C i /C a ratios and lower Δ 13 C in the leaves of salt-treated plants.