The comparison of results between lettuce and water spinach also indicates that lettuce is more sensitive to the toxicity of single DEHP, because extremely significant differences were observed for phytochrome indices ( p < 0.01) at the spiked concentration of 20 mg kg −1 [ 29 ].
The declines in chlorophyll a content and carotenoid content showed similar trends, especially in treatments with 20 mg DBP kg −1 , as shown by the significant differences compared to the controls ( p < 0.05) and highly significant differences ( p < 0.01) in Figure 1 a.
In the current experiment, the carotenoid content in test water spinach leaves showed a decreasing trend, indicating reduced defense against free radicals and declines in nutritional value and quality. 4.3.