Water Deficit Improves Reproductive Fitness in Nicotiana benthamiana Plants Infected by Cucumber mosaic virus

Plants are concurrently exposed to biotic and abiotic stresses, including infection by viruses and drought. Combined stresses result in plant responses that are different from those observed for each individual stress. We investigated compensatory effects induced by virus infection on the fitness of hosts grown under water deficit, and the hypothesis that water deficit improves tolerance, estimated as reproductive fitness, to virus infection. Our results show that infection by Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) or Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) promotes drought tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana benthamiana. However, neither CMV nor TuMV had a positive impact on host reproductive fitness following withdrawal of water, as determined by measuring the number of individuals producing seeds, seed grains, and seed germination rates. Importantly, infection by CMV but not by TuMV improved the reproductive fitness of N. benthamiana plants when exposed to drought compared to watered, virus-infected plants. However, no such conditional phenotype was found in Arabidopsis plants infected with CMV. Water deficit did not affect the capacity of infected plants to transmit CMV through seeds. These findings highlight a conditional improvement in biological efficacy of N. benthamiana plants infected with CMV under water deficit, and lead to the prediction that plants can exhibit increased tolerance to specific viruses under some of the projected climate change scenarios.

Automated summary

This study investigated the compensatory effects of virus infection on plant fitness under water deficit. The results showed that water deficit can improve drought tolerance of Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana benthamiana infected with Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) or Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). However, the reproductive fitness of the plants did not improve following withdrawal of water, and only CMV improved the reproductive fitness of N. benthamiana plants when exposed to drought.