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- Title
Two measures of leaf capacitance: insights into the water transport pathway and hydraulic conductance in leaves.
- Authors
Blackman, Chris J.; Brodribb, Tim J.
- Abstract
The efficiency and stress tolerance of leaf water transport are key indicators of plant function, but our ability to assess theseprocessesisconstrainedbygapsinourunderstandingofthewater transport pathway in leaves. A major challenge is to understand how different pools of water in leaves are connected to the transpiration stream and, hence, determine leaf capacitance (C[sub leaf]) to short- and medium-term fluctuations in transpiration. Here, we examine variation across an anatomically and phylogenetically diverse group of woody angiosperms in two measures of C[sub leaf] assumed to represent bulk-leaf capacitance (C[sub bulk]) and the capacitance of leaf tissues that influence dynamic changes in leaf hydration (C[sub dyn]). Among species, C[sub bulk] was significantly correlated with leaf mass per unit area, whereas C[sub dyn] was independently related to leaf lignin content (%) and the saturated mass of leaf water per unit dry weight. Dynamic and steady-state measurements of leaf hydraulic conductance (K[sub leaf]) agreed if C[sub dyn] was used rather than C[sub bulk], suggesting that the leaf tissue in some species is hydraulically compartmentalised and that only a proportion of total leaf water is hydraulically well connected to the transpiration stream. These results indicate that leaf rehydration kinetics can accurately measure K[sub leaf] with knowledge of the capacitance of the hydraulic pathway.
- Subjects
LEAVES; STRESS tolerance (Psychology); PLANT transpiration; ANGIOSPERMS; LIGNINS; HYDRATION
- Publication
Functional Plant Biology, 2011, Vol 38, Issue 2, p119
- ISSN
1445-4408
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1071/FP10183