Comparative Analysis of Physiological and Biochemical Responses of Native and Introduced Plant Species to Water Stress in the Ranchi Region, Jharkhand

Abstract

Water stress is one of the major non-biological factors that limit growth, yield, and the survival of plants, particularly in semi-arid areas like Ranchi, Jharkhand. The present study explores and contrasts the water stress in the selected native and exotic plant species through studying their physiological and biochemical reactions. The factors examined are relative water content (RWC), stomatal conductance, chlorophyll fluorescence, proline accumulation, antioxidant enzyme activities (superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase), and lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde content). The results indicate the occurrence of species-specific adaptive mechanisms that coincide with the native species showing greater resilience to water deficit through the combined application of osmotic adjustment, effective stomatal regulation, and complete antioxidant defense systems as opposed to the introduced ones. The implications of these results for plantings and restorations under climate variability are that the native flora has no less than an ecological role that is in drought-prone areas. The understanding of such responses is critical for development of sustainable landscape management practices and for predicting changes in vegetation in the Eastern Indian plateau region under the climate change scenarios matching with the projected ones.

Keywords: Classical nucleation theory, electric field, free-energy barrier, critical radius, electrochemical nucleation, field-assisted crystallization.