1Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Science, Palacký University, Šlechtitelů 27, Olomouc 783 71,Czech Republic
2Department of Chemical Biology, Faculty of Science, Palacký University, Šlechtitelů27, Olomouc 783 71, Czech Republic
3Czech Advanced Technology and Research Institute (CATRIN),Palacký University Olomouc, Šlechtitelů 27, Olomouc, 783 71, Czech Republic
| Received 25 Apr 2024 |
Accepted 08 Aug 2024 |
Published 29 Aug 2024 |
In the context of global climate change and the increasing need to study plant response to drought, there is a demand for easily, rapidly, and remotely measurable parameters that sensitively reflect leaf water status. Parameters with this potential include those derived from leaf spectral reflectance (R) and chlorophyll fluorescence. As each of these methods probes completely different leaf characteristics, their sensitivity to water loss may differ in different plant species and/or under different circumstances, making it difficult to choose the most appropriate method for estimating water status in a given situation. Here, we present a simple comparative analysis to facilitate this choice for leaf-level measurements. Using desiccation of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Samsun) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Bojos) leaves as a model case, we measured parameters of spectral R and chlorophyll fluorescence and then evaluated and compared their applicability by means of introduced coefficients (coefficient of reliability, sensitivity, and inaccuracy). This comparison showed that, in our case, chlorophyll fluorescence was more reliable and universal than spectral R. Nevertheless, it is most appropriate to use both methods simultaneously, as the specific ranking of their parameters according to the coefficient of reliability may indicate a specific scenario of changes in desiccating leaves.
