Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) is a staple food and represents an important food security role in most tropical regions. It is, unfortunately, susceptible to prolonged drought conditions. Abscisic acid (ABA) is a well-documented stress-induced phytohormone that tolerant crops usually accumulate in leaves to induce stomatal closure, preventing water loss through inhibition of transpiration. Hitherto, exists very scarce information regarding the ABA role in taro response to drought. Here, we determined the ABA content in the shoots and corms of taro subjected to seven months of water scarcity and linked ABA to other drought resilience traits, including carbon isotopic discrimination (Δ¹³C), oxalic acid (OA), chlorophyll content index (CCI), water use efficiency (WUE), and biomass (B). The Δ¹³C-shoot content showed partially open stomata in all accessions, and significant correlation with Δ¹³C-corm, CCI, and WUE. The osmotically active OA-shoot decrease seemed not to interfere with the stomatal aperture. The tolerant accessions subjected to drought stress had higher B-corm, ABA-shoot, Δ¹³C-shoot, CCI, OA, and WUE. However, the observed under drought conditions increase of ABA in the shoots, and its decrease in the corms were not significantly correlated, nor with other traits, suggesting that ABA was not the main regulator of taro physiological processes under stress. The information gained should be considered in breeding programs to predict taro’s response to climate change.

芋头（Colocasia esculenta（L.）Schott）是主食，在大多数热带地区都扮演着重要的粮食安全角色​​。不幸的是，它容易遭受长期干旱的影响。脱落酸（ABA）是一种有据可查的胁迫诱导的植物激素，耐性农作物通常在叶片中积累以诱导气孔闭合，从而通过抑制蒸腾作用防止水分流失。迄今为止，关于ABA在芋头对干旱的反应中的作用的信息非常稀少。在这里，我们确定了芽，并进行七个月缺水芋头球茎的ABA含量和ABA链接到其他抗旱能力特征，包括碳同位素歧视（Δ ¹³C），草酸（OA），叶绿素含量指数（CCI），水利用效率（WUE）和生物量（B）。的Δ ¹³ C-拍摄内容显示在所有收集部分打开气孔，用Δ显著相关¹³ C-球茎，CCI和WUE。渗透活性OA-拍减的减少似乎不干扰气孔孔径。经受干旱胁迫耐受性的种质具有较高的B-球茎，ABA-拍摄，Δ ¹³C-shoot，CCI，OA和WUE。然而，在干旱条件下观察到的嫩芽中ABA的含量增加，而其在茎中的减少没有显着相关性，也与其他性状没有显着相关，这表明ABA不是胁迫下芋头生理过程的主要调节剂。育种计划中应考虑获得的信息，以预测芋头对气候变化的反应。