Plant hydraulics as a central hub integrating plant and ecosystem function: meeting report for 'Emerging Frontiers in Plant Hydraulics' (Washington, DC, May 2015)

Lawren Sack; Marilyn C Ball; Craig Brodersen; Stephen D Davis; David L Des Marais; Lisa A Donovan; Thomas J Givnish; Uwe G Hacke; Travis Huxman; Steven Jansen; Anna L Jacobsen; Daniel M Johnson; George W Koch; Christophe Maurel; Katherine A McCulloh; Nate G McDowell; Andrew McElrone; Frederick C Meinzer; Peter J Melcher; Gretchen North; Matteo Pellegrini; William T Pockman; R Brandon Pratt; Anna Sala; Louis S Santiago; Jessica A Savage; Christine Scoffoni; Sanna Sevanto; John Sperry; Stephen D Tyerman; Danielle Way; N Michele Holbrook

doi:10.1111/pce.12732

Plant hydraulics as a central hub integrating plant and ecosystem function: meeting report for 'Emerging Frontiers in Plant Hydraulics' (Washington, DC, May 2015)

Plant Cell Environ. 2016 Sep;39(9):2085-94. doi: 10.1111/pce.12732. Epub 2016 Jul 20.

Authors

Lawren Sack¹, Marilyn C Ball², Craig Brodersen³, Stephen D Davis⁴, David L Des Marais^{5

6}, Lisa A Donovan⁷, Thomas J Givnish⁸, Uwe G Hacke⁹, Travis Huxman¹⁰, Steven Jansen¹¹, Anna L Jacobsen¹², Daniel M Johnson¹³, George W Koch¹⁴, Christophe Maurel¹⁵, Katherine A McCulloh⁸, Nate G McDowell¹⁶, Andrew McElrone^{17

18}, Frederick C Meinzer¹⁹, Peter J Melcher²⁰, Gretchen North²¹, Matteo Pellegrini²², William T Pockman²³, R Brandon Pratt¹², Anna Sala²⁴, Louis S Santiago²⁵, Jessica A Savage^{5

6}, Christine Scoffoni¹, Sanna Sevanto¹⁶, John Sperry²⁶, Stephen D Tyerman²⁷, Danielle Way²⁸, N Michele Holbrook⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
² Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 0200, Australia.
³ School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.
⁴ Natural Science Division, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, 90263, USA.
⁵ Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02131, USA.
⁶ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Boston, MA, 02138, USA.
⁷ Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA.
⁸ Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
⁹ Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E3, Canada.
¹⁰ Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Center for Environmental Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
¹¹ Ulm University, Institute of Systematic Botany and Ecology, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, Ulm, 89081, Germany.
¹² Department of Biology, California State University, Bakersfield, CA, 93311, USA.
¹³ Department of Forest, Rangeland and Fire Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844, USA.
¹⁴ Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
¹⁵ Biochimie et Physiologie Moléculaire des Plantes, UMR 5004, INRA-CNRS-Sup Agro-Université de Montpellier, 2 Place Viala, Montpellier, F-34060, France.
¹⁶ Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
¹⁸ USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
¹⁹ Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA.
²⁰ Department of Biology, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA.
²¹ Department of Biology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, 90041, USA.
²² Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
²³ Department of Biology, MSC03 2020, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
²⁴ Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA.
²⁵ Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
²⁶ Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
²⁷ ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, Waite Research Precinct, The University of Adelaide, PMB 1, Glen Osmond, South Australia, 5064, Australia.
²⁸ Department of Biology, Western University, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada.

PMID: 27037757
DOI: 10.1111/pce.12732

Abstract

Water plays a central role in plant biology and the efficiency of water transport throughout the plant affects both photosynthetic rate and growth, an influence that scales up deterministically to the productivity of terrestrial ecosystems. Moreover, hydraulic traits mediate the ways in which plants interact with their abiotic and biotic environment. At landscape to global scale, plant hydraulic traits are important in describing the function of ecological communities and ecosystems. Plant hydraulics is increasingly recognized as a central hub within a network by which plant biology is connected to palaeobiology, agronomy, climatology, forestry, community and ecosystem ecology and earth-system science. Such grand challenges as anticipating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, and improving the security and sustainability of our food supply rely on our fundamental knowledge of how water behaves in the cells, tissues, organs, bodies and diverse communities of plants. A workshop, 'Emerging Frontiers in Plant Hydraulics' supported by the National Science Foundation, was held in Washington DC, 2015 to promote open discussion of new ideas, controversies regarding measurements and analyses, and especially, the potential for expansion of up-scaled and down-scaled inter-disciplinary research, and the strengthening of connections between plant hydraulic research, allied fields and global modelling efforts.

Keywords: cavitation; drought; embolism; genomics; phloem; stomata; vascular pathogens; vascular transport; xylem.

Publication types

Congress

MeSH terms

Ecosystem*
Trees / physiology*
Water / physiology*
Water Cycle

Substances

Water