1 Despite much debate about their importance, only a few ®eld studies have evaluated the intensity of competition and herbivory. 2 Artemisia maritima, Atriplex portulacoides and Plantago maritima, three plant species which are common in European temperate salt marshes, were transplanted into di€erent successional stages (15, 30 and 45 years old) of a temperate salt marsh. Biomass of each transp...

Oxidative stress is induced by a wide range of environmental factors including heavy metals stress. Therefore, antioxidant resistance mechanisms may provide a strategy to enhance metal tolerance, and processes underlying antioxidant responses to metal stress must be clearly understood. In the present study, the effects of heavy metals generating antioxidative defense systems (i.e. superoxide di...

The effects of salinity on growth, water relations, glycinebetaine content, and ion accumulation in the perennial halophyte Atriplex griffithii var. stocksii were determined. The following questions were addressed: (1) What effect does salinity have on growth responses at different ages? (2) Is A. griffithii an ion accumulator? (3) Does A. griffithii accumulate glycinebetaine in response to sal...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonize land plants in every ecosystem, even extreme conditions such as saline soils. In the present work we report for the first time the mycorrhizal status and the vertical fungal distribution of AMF spores present in the rhizospheric soil samples of four species of Chenopodiaceae (Allenrolfea patagonica, Atriplex argentina, Heterostachys ritteriana and Sua...

The search for cancer treatment continues to be a global effort. As part of this global effort, many natural products have been tested against cancer cell lines, mostly from tropically located plants. This study reports that extracts of Atriplex confertifolia (Torr. and Frem.) S. Watson (Chenopodiaceae), a native North American plant (also known as shadscale or saltbush), has significant bioact...