Abstract Title: Soil salinity and mechanical impedance differentially affects embryonic root architecture in native rice varieties of West Bengal

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   Abstract Title: Soil salinity and mechanical impedance differentially affects embryonic root architecture in native rice varieties of West Bengal
   
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   All Authors Sanghamitra Adak-Senior Research Fellow, Sonali Sengupta- Research Associate, Arindam Roy- Senior Research Fellow , Abhishek Mukherjee- Technical Assistant and Arun Lahiri Majumder- Senior Professor and INSA Senior Scientist
   
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   Presenters Sanghamitra Adak-Senior Research Fellow, Bose Institute, Kolkata
   
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   Short Description of what will be discussed during the presentation Traditional rice varieties adapted to diverse topography harbor novel stress tolerance traits. Making the first contact with the soil environment, roots are first responders of soil borne stress; including nutrient and water scarcity, hypersalinity and soil compactness. Embryonic root responds by bending, twisting, foraging and regulation of lateral root initiation. We established a quantitative measurement coeffiecient- Stress Adaptation Coefficient (SAC) dependent on root responses to stress and applied it to study the effect of mechanical stress and salinity on roots of rice varieties collected all across West Bengal, India. The response of root to mechanical and salinity stress are overlapping. Analysis of the response of roots by means of SAC in 28 rice varieties including high-yield salt tolerant varieties as well as geographically isolated native rice varieties shows that many of the salt tolerant varieties also perform better in mechanical stress while the opposite is not always true. cDNA microarray shows about 6000 common transcripts to be differentially regulated among the two stresses and common pathways were identified. Overall, our study indicates that there is an important commonality in the molecular basis of salt and mechanical stress and presents an easy-to-perform early establishment stress screen for rice varieties.
   

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   What will the audience take away from your presentation?
   

Our work represents an important exploration of root plasticity traits the native/folk rice landraces in West Bengal, India in two major abiotic stresses; qxsalinity and mechanical stresses and provides insight into some of the molecular pathways that shape this plasticity.

Our school of thoughts are currently inclined towards the idea that root plasticity is innate and heritable trait and plays an important role in stress tolerance. The exploration of a collection of hitherto unstudied native cultivars from various landscapes of West Bengal, India in terms of root plasticity, gives us an unprecedented insight into their adaptive ability for facing salinity and mechanical stress.

In future, such study would play important roles in modeling and improving root architectural plasticity and seedling establishment in face of early abiotic stress.

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   Is this abstract connected to an organized session? If yes, please provide full session title. No
   
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   Biography of presenting author
   

Sanghamitra Adak is a Senior research fellow of Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship- Scheme from UGC, India. She is doing PhD from Bose Institute, Kolkata under the supervision of Prof. A.N. Lahiri Majumder of Division of Plant Biology. She did her graduation in Botany from Calcutta University (CU). She did her MSc in the same subject from Ballygunge Science College of CU, Kolkata India.

Author Details:
Full Name: Sanghamitra Adak

Contact Number:[phone]

Country: India

Category: Poster Presentation

Session Name: Plant Science and Plant Research- Plant stress responses

Email: [e-mail]