Effects of Desiccation on some Activated Oxygen Processing Enzymes and Anti-Oxidants in Mosses

The possibility that desiccation tolerance in mosses may bedependent on an ability to process species of activated oxygenwas investigated using the tolerant sand-dune moss Tortula ruraliformis(Besch.) Grout and the sensitive minerotrophic flush speciesDicranella palustris (Dicks.) ex. E. F. Warb (D. squarrosa (Starke)Schp.). Mosses were desiccated in low and high irradiance andresponses of these plants compared to those of dark-desiccatedand hydrated control plants. Both desiccated and undesiccatedplants of T. ruraliformis had a higher superoxide dismutase(SOD) activity than D. palustris, but had similar, or loweractivities of the chloroplastic H₂O₂-processing enzymes peroxidaseand ascorbate peroxidase. In T. ruraliformis, desiccation inboth light and dark led to a significant increase in SOD activity,but did not consistently stimulate the activities of peroxidaseand ascorbate peroxidase. In D. palustris, desiccation in combinationwith irradiance led to a decrease in peroxidase activity, buthad little affect on the activities of other activated oxygen-processingenzymes. Catalase, an extra-chloroplastic enzyme, was up to7-fold more active in hydrated T. ruraliformis than in D. palustris,but desiccation resulted in significant decreases in the activityof this enzyme in both species. Regardless of irradiance level,there was a depletion of the anti-oxidant ascorbic acid in bothspecies when desiccated. Only in T. ruraliformis was there asynthesis of