The plant reacts with salt like human reaction to pain

(Cold weather) - Cold winters and arid summers are creating salty soil. In some areas, arid increased natural concentration of salt in the soil, while in some other regions, sea level rise has made saline groundwater saline. A new study has found that plants are creating a calcium wave in order to survive in increasingly salty soil, saline soils have become a global problem.

Humans have increased the salinity of the land when using land and water to alter the water table, human-induced climate change has changed rainfall and air temperature models. While it may seem unusual, even irrigation works to increase the salinity of the soil. All types of water that are irrigated into the soil contain less salt. When plants cannot absorb salt, evaporation will dehydrate and plants cannot use residual salt, so salt will accumulate in the soil over time.

Tree roots are not born to move

In frosty winters, salt is thrown to the ground in increasing numbers to combat freezing and snow. Over the past 50 years the use of salt on roads and paths has increased dramatically: In 1960, about 3 million tons of salt were spread across the streets of North America; today, this number is 20 million tons.

By spring, stormwater runoff drags salt from the streets that flow into surrounding land areas and into underground water. The cumulative effects of salt use on streets and paths are significant. In some freshwater river basins, scientists observed that salt concentrations increased by 100% and 250%. And the concentration continues to increase every year.

This causes an important problem when salt, in general, is toxic to plants - as many high school students will have conclusive evidence in classroom experiments, and 'salty soil' is a trick. The passage was won by the military to punish their enemies, and it was more difficult to resettle on the land that was sprinkled with salt.

Plugging roots in one place, plants cannot avoid the toxic effects of salt, so high salinity is a serious threat to both crops and the safety of whole ecosystem set.

Recent research by Won-Gyu Choi and his colleagues in Simon Gilroy's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin has found that calcium plays an important role in the initial reaction of plants with salt . When plants see salt, they respond by creating a 'calcium wave' , a concentration of high concentrations of calcium ions that originate from the salt detection point, spreading throughout the plant. This wave is generated by the release of calcium that plants store in their cells.

The authors of this study used a novel system to observe changes in calcium in plant cells, by making plants able to produce a protein that fluoresces according to calcium concentration. .

When they exposed plant roots to a variety of stimuli including cold, collision or stress, plants often responded to increased calcium levels at the point of occurrence. When the roots felt salts, calcium levels at the point of contact increased, then at neighboring cells a calcium wave continued to travel between the two cells per second throughout the trunk. Calcium waves move from the roots in every direction towards the ends of the branches and leaves above the ground for 2 minutes.

When the branches get the signal, they will adjust the current activity in progress. The truth is, they increase what is described as a defensive response . After receiving notice of the calcium wave, plant tissue will reshape their cell functions - producing new molecules that help plants fight salt, by adjusting the water balance in the plant, and creating barriers to salt invasion of plant tissues. The authors confirmed that the calcium wave produced this reaction by using calcium-inhibiting chemicals.

Won-Gyu Choi and colleagues speculated that calcium was released from a cell compartment, stored for this purpose. This requires the operation of specific proteins, which form a pore protein , which opens to release calcium from the cavity.

Examining where these protein pores did not function, the scientists found that calcium waves no longer spread correctly in the plant. Lacking the ability to generate such calcium wave transmission, scientists found that plants were unable to equip resistance against salt. When salt is present, these plants also exhibit poorer growth with normal plants.

Won-Gyu Choi and colleagues discovered an important mechanism used by plants to deal with saline soils. The calcium wave that plants make in their roots informs the rest of the plant that the salty period is ahead, this is just like our nervous system.

In humans, calcium is also used to make signals spread from one nerve cell to other cells when we experience stress, such as when experiencing pain. When you have salt in a wound, the brain signals you receive also come from a calcium wave, like nerve cells that trigger the action of another nerve in a communication chain reaction believe from peripheral nerves to the brain in less than a second.

Likewise, plants are using a similar system to convey information about salt-induced inhibition, but instead of being transmitted to a focused brain, plants inform all cells throughout their bodies.

Hopefully in the future, we can use this information to help plants reduce the stresses caused by saline soils and face better environmental salinity - as long as we plan to eat plants, or animals that are still raised by plants, we will need to help plants with all possibilities.