Supplementary file 1_Integrated physiological, photochemical and anatomical responses reveal divergent drought-response strategies among herbaceous peony cultivars.zip

Five cultivars, ‘Fen Guan’ (FG), ‘Jing Wang Fen’ (JWF), ‘San Dian Hong’ (SDH), ‘Cai Xia’ (CX) and ‘Xiao Ou’ (XO), were exposed for 30 d to nominal target regimes of 65% (CK), 45% (mild drought, LD), 25% (moderate drought, MD) and 5% (severe drought, SD) of substrate maximum water-holding capacity.

We quantified leaf water and functional traits, pigment and membrane status, antioxidant enzymes and osmolytes, chlorophyll fluorescence, and leaf and root anatomy. Cultivar differences were evaluated using two-factor models, log response ratios, descriptive principal component analysis, an experiment-specific drought trait-integration index (DTI) and bootstrap resampling. SD reduced relative water content and chlorophyll index, increased relative electrolyte conductivity, and generally induced proline and soluble-sugar accumulation, whereas antioxidant activities, PSII energy fluxes and anatomical responses were cultivar dependent.