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- Title
Where do leaf water leaks come from? Trade‐offs underlying the variability in minimum conductance across tropical savanna species with contrasting growth strategies.
- Authors
Machado, Renan; Loram‐Lourenço, Lucas; Farnese, Fernanda Santos; Alves, Rauander Douglas Ferreira Barros; Sousa, Letícia Ferreira; Silva, Fabiano Guimarães; Filho, Sebastião Carvalho Vasconcelos; Torres‐Ruiz, José M.; Cochard, Hervé; Menezes‐Silva, Paulo Eduardo
- Abstract
Summary: Plants continue to lose water from their leaves even after complete stomatal closure. Although this minimum conductance (gleaf‐res) has substantial impacts on strategies of water use and conservation, little is known about the potential drivers underlying the variability of this trait across species.We thus untangled the relative contribution of water leaks from the cuticle and stomata in order to investigate how the variability in leaf morphological and anatomical traits is related to the variation in gleaf‐res and carbon assimilation capacity across 30 diverse species from the Brazilian Cerrado.In addition to cuticle permeance, water leaks from stomata had a significant impact on gleaf‐res. The differential pattern of stomata distribution in the epidermis was a key factor driving this variation, suggesting the existence of a trade‐off between carbon assimilation and water loss through gleaf‐res. For instance, higher gleaf‐res, observed in fast‐growing species, was associated with the investment in small and numerous stomata, which allowed higher carbon assimilation rates but also increased water leaks, with negative impacts on leaf survival under drought. Variation in cuticle structural properties was not linked to gleaf‐res.Our results therefore suggest the existence of a trade‐off between carbon assimilation efficiency and dehydration tolerance at foliar level.
- Subjects
WATER leakage; SAVANNAS; WATER efficiency; WATER conservation; CUTICLE; WATER use
- Publication
New Phytologist, 2021, Vol 229, Issue 3, p1415
- ISSN
0028-646X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/nph.16941