Soil-plant hydraulics explain stomatal efficiency-safety tradeoff
(2025) EGU General Assembly 2025 — Location: Vienna (2025)
Files
No attached file found for this publication.
Details
- Authors
Cai, Gaochao 
Javaux, Mathieu
- Abstract
- <jats:p>The efficiency-safety tradeoff has been thoroughly investigated in plants, especially concerning their capacity to transport water and avoid embolism. Stomatal regulation is a vital plant behaviour to respond to soil and atmospheric water limitation. Recently, a stomatal efficiency-safety tradeoff was reported where plants with higher maximum stomatal conductance (gmax) exhibited greater sensitivity to stomatal closure during soil drying, that is, less negative leaf water potential at 50%&#160;gmax&#160;(&#968;gs50). However, the underlying mechanism of this&#160;gmax-&#968;gs50&#160;tradeoff remains unknown. Here, we utilized a soil-plant hydraulic model, in which stomatal closure is triggered by nonlinearity in soil-plant hydraulics, to investigate such tradeoff. Our simulations show that increasing&#160;gmax&#160;is aligned with less negative&#160;&#968;gs50. Plants with higher&#160;gmax&#160;(also higher transpiration) require larger quantities of water to be moved across the rhizosphere, which results in a precipitous decrease in water potential at the soil-root interface, and therefore in the leaves. We demonstrated that the&#160;gmax-&#968;gs50&#160;tradeoff can be predicted based on soil-plant hydraulics, and is impacted by plant hydraulic properties, such as plant hydraulic conductance, active root length&#160;and embolism resistance. We conclude that plants may therefore adjust their growth and/or their hydraulic properties to adapt to contrasting habitats and climate conditions.</jats:p>
- Affiliations
Citations
Cai, G., Carminati, A., Gleason, S., Javaux, M., & Ahmed, M. (2025, March 18). Soil-plant hydraulics explain stomatal efficiency-safety tradeoff. EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6066