Do plants respond and recover from a combination of drought and heatwave in the same manner under adequate and deprived soil nutrient conditions?

Extreme climatic conditions with extended drought periods and heatwaves are predicted to increase in frequency and severity in many regions of the world. Aside from this, other abiotic stress factors such as nutrient deficiency could pose a serious problem to plants when combined with other stressors resulting in more complex underpinning mechanisms. In the present study, we evaluated the response of Brassica napus to single and combined impacts of drought and heatwave (HW) under adequate or deprived (N-A and N-D) soil nutrient conditions. In addition, to get better insights in the plant response to combined stress, a post-stress period, pointing out a degree of the recovery after the cessation of stress, was also included. The results showed a different manner of single drought and heatwave action. The adverse effect of drought on leaf gas exchange was lagged on the growth and became more apparent only after recovery period with no obvious difference between different nutrient levels. Contrary, the growth response of nutrient-deprived plants to single HW was weak and in most cases, insignificant. Heatwave applied simultaneously with drought highly exacerbated the adverse effect of drought both under N-A and N-D conditions. Combined drought and heatwave stress resulted in the sharper decline of Aₛₐₜ and it was attributed to both stomatal and non-stomatal limitations. Interestingly, plants underwent combined drought and HW treatment under N-D conditions showed better aboveground growth recovery, compared to those grown under N-A conditions, while displayed far more diminished photochemistry of photosystem II and badly disturbed the C/N balance. This discrepancy came from the fact that soil nutrient deficiency, by itself, evoked strong stress under control climate conditions resulting in a dramatically slower aboveground growth of nutrient-deprived plant. In turn, although combined drought and HW stress had similar effect on the aboveground growth either under N-A or N-D conditions, the recovery of later one was better. These results highlight the necessity to look at plants’ performance under unfavorable environmental conditions beyond the actual event, since it can be depended not only on the duration of exposure but also on the legacy effect after treatment.