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- Title
Does hydraulic lift or nighttime transpiration facilitate nitrogen acquisition?
- Authors
Snyder, Keirith A.; James, Jeremy J.; Richards, James H.; Donovan, Lisa A.
- Abstract
Water movement from roots to soil at night in the process of hydraulic lift (redistribution) rehydrates the rhizosphere and has been proposed to improve plant nutrient acquisition. Another process that has now been found in many plant species is nighttime transpiration and this could also affect nutrient relations by influencing supply of mobile nutrients to roots at night. The effects of these soil/root water relations interactions have not been adequately tested. We chose ten Sarcobatus vermiculatus (Hook.) Torrey shrubs with different magnitudes of hydraulic lift (i.e. diel range in soil water potential) to test the hypothesis that the magnitude of lift would be positively related to the amount of nitrogen (N) uptake over a period of days. A 15N tracer was injected in the 20–30 cm soil layer at locations with hydraulic lift to determine plant 15N acquisition by shallow roots conducting hydraulic lift. Half of the plants were also placed in large humidified tents (i.e. “bagged”), which suppressed nighttime transpiration, and thus were expected to have greater magnitudes of hydraulic lift, although they did not. All plants took up the 15N tracer, but contrary to our hypothesis the magnitude of hydraulic lift had no significant effect on the amount of 15N acquired over a 9-day period following labeling. However, plants that were bagged tended to have lower 15N acquisition ( P = 0.07). These data indicate that decreased nighttime transpirational water loss or some other effect of bagging may decrease nutrient acquisition by these nutrient-limited phreatophytic shrubs and more generally suggests a possible nutritional benefit of nighttime transpiration by plants. This suggestion needs more thorough testing to elucidate an important potential link between plant water and nutrient relations.
- Subjects
PLANT-soil relationships; PLANT-water relationships; PLANT nutrients; PLANT nutrition; PLANT physiology; TRANSPIRATION (Physics); PLANT species; SOIL composition; SOIL structure
- Publication
Plant & Soil, 2008, Vol 306, Issue 1/2, p159
- ISSN
0032-079X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11104-008-9567-7