Effect of soil water stress on leaf trial of Zygophyllum xnthoxylum during seedling stage

The pot experiment was carried out to deal with leaf physiological characteristics and water use efficiency of Zygophyllum xanthoxylum seedlings under different water stress.Meanwhile,the correlation between leaf physiological characteristics and water use efficiency were also analyzed.The results of this study showed that,1) the total leaf area and single leaf area activity decreased with the decrease of soil water content.Total number of leafs on severe drought was sharply reduced by 51.2% compared with that on moderate drought;2) leaf water potential and leaf relative water content reduced with the decrease of soil water content significantly,but leaf relative water content changed a little;3) the chlorophyll content increased with the decrease of soil water content,but there was no difference among treatments;4) when soil water content decreased,stomatal density increased significantly,whereas stomatal length and width decreased significantly;5) water stress increased the long-term water use efficiency.The water use efficiency had significant positive correlation(P0.01) to stomatal density,significant negative correlation(P0.05) to leaf water potential,but had no correlation with specific leaf area and chlorophyll content.In summary,drought-resistance of Z.xanthoxylum seedlings could be increased through changing leaf physiological characteristics.