scholarly journals Independent variation in photosynthetic capacity and stomatal conductance leads to differences in intrinsic water use efficiency in 11 soybean genotypes before and during mild drought

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 2875-2887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Gilbert ◽  
Maciej A. Zwieniecki ◽  
N. Michele Holbrook
2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Melissa C. Smith ◽  
Richard N. Mack

Abstract Suitable plant water dynamics and the ability to withstand periods of low moisture input facilitate plant establishment in seasonally arid regions. Temperate bamboos are a major constituent of mixed evergreen and deciduous forests throughout temperate East Asia but play only an incidental role in North American forests and are altogether absent in the Pacific Northwest forest. Many bamboo species are classified as mesic or riparian, but none are considered drought tolerant. To assess their ability to withstand low water, we subjected five Asian temperate and one North American temperate bamboo species to three irrigation treatments: 100%, 50%, and 10% replacement of water lost through evapotranspiration. Plants were irrigated every four days over a 31-day period. Plant response to treatments was measured with stomatal conductance, leaf xylem water potentials, and intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE). Pleioblastus distichus and Pseudosasa japonica showed significant reductions in conductance between high and low irrigation treatments. Sasa palmata had significantly lower stomatal conductance in all treatments. Pleioblastus chino displayed significantly higher iWUE in the mid irrigation treatment and Arunindaria gigantea displayed significantly lower iWUE than P. chino and S. palmata in the low irrigation treatment. The Asian bamboo species examined here tolerate low water availability and readily acclimate to different soil moisture conditions. Index words: Temperate bamboos, irrigation response, stomatal conductance, intrinsic water use efficiency. Species used in this study: Giant Cane [Arundinaria gigantea (Walt.) Muhl.]; Pleioblastus chino (Franchet & Savatier) Makino; Pleioblastus distichus (Mitford) Nakai; Pseudosasa japonica (Makino); Sasa palmata (Bean) Nakai.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
R. Dietrich ◽  
F.W. Bell ◽  
M. Anand

Given the large contribution of forests to terrestrial carbon storage, there is a need to resolve the environmental and physiological drivers of tree-level response to rising atmospheric CO2. This study examines how site-level soil moisture influences growth and intrinsic water-use efficiency in sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.). We construct tree-ring, δ18O, and Δ13C chronologies for trees across a soil moisture gradient in Ontario, Canada, and employ a structural equation modelling approach to ascertain their climatic, ontogenetic, and environmental drivers. Our results support previous evidence for the presence of strong developmental effects in tree-ring isotopic chronologies — in the range of −4.7‰ for Δ13C and +0.8‰ for δ18O — across the tree life span. Additionally, we show that the physiological response of sugar maple to increasing atmospheric CO2 depends on site-level soil moisture variability, with trees only in relatively wet plots exhibiting temporal increases in intrinsic water-use efficiency. These results suggest that trees in wet and mesic plots have experienced temporal increases in stomatal conductance and photosynthetic capacity, whereas trees in dry plots have experienced decreases in photosynthetic capacity. This study is the first to examine sugar maple physiology using a dendroisotopic approach and broadens our understanding of carbon–water interactions in temperate forests.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin M. Keller ◽  
Sebastian Lienert ◽  
Anil Bozbiyik ◽  
Thomas F. Stocker ◽  
Olga V. Churakova ◽  
...  

Abstract. Measurements of the stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) on annual tree rings offer new opportunities to evaluate mechanisms of variations in photosynthesis and stomatal conductance under changing CO2 and climate, especially in conjunction with process-based biogeochemical model simulations. The isotopic discrimination is indicative of the ratio between the CO2 partial pressure in the intercellular cavities and the atmosphere (ci / ca) and of the ratio of assimilation to stomatal conductance, termed intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE). We performed isotope-enabled simulations over the industrial period with the land biosphere module (CLM4.5) of the Community Earth System Model and the LPX-Bern dynamic global vegetation model. Results for C3 tree species show good agreement with a global compilation of δ13C measurements on leaves, though modeled 13C discrimination by C3 trees is smaller in arid regions than measured. A compilation of seventy-six tree-ring records, mainly from Europe, boreal Asia, and western North America, suggest on average small 20th-century changes in isotopic discrimination and an increase in iWUE of about 27 % since 1900. LPX-Bern results match these century-scale reconstructions, supporting the idea that the physiology of stomata has evolved to optimize trade-offs between carbon gain by assimilation and water loss. In contrast, CLM4.5 simulates an increase in discrimination and in turn a change in iWUE that is almost twice as large as revealed by the tree-ring data. Factorial simulations show that these changes are mainly in response to rising atmospheric CO2. The results suggest that the down-regulation of ci / ca and of photosynthesis by nitrogen limitation is possibly too strong in the standard setup of CLM4.5 or there may be more fundamental problems associated with the prescribed relationship between conductance and assimilation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 13-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Samara Nunes de Lima ◽  
Fábio Afonso Mazzei Moura de Assis Figueiredo ◽  
Amanda Oliveira Martins ◽  
Bruna Corrêa da Silva de Deus ◽  
Tiago Massi Ferraz ◽  
...  

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane S. Thomas ◽  
Matthew J. Searson ◽  
Jann P. Conway ◽  
Kelvin D. Montagu

This study investigates the putative role of thicker leaves in enhancing photosynthetic capacity and water-use efficiency (WUE) of Eucalyptus species native to xeric environments. Three Eucalyptus species, Eucalyptus grandis Hill. (ex Maiden), E. sideroxylon Cunn. (ex Woolls) and E. occidentalis (Endl.), were grown under well-watered or water-limited conditions in a single compartment of a temperature-controlled glasshouse. Eucalyptus grandis is native to a mesic environment while E. sideroxylon and E. occidentalis are native to xeric environments. Leaves of E. sideroxylon and E. occidentalis were thicker and contained more nitrogen (N) on a leaf-area basis than E. grandis. Leaf gas-exchange measurements indicated that the photosynthetic capacity of E. sideroxylon and E.�occidentalis was greater than E. grandis and that stomatal conductance and WUE were negatively correlated. Whole-plant, gas-exchange and carbon-isotope measurements showed that E. sideroxylon and E. occidentalis had lower WUE than E. grandis under both well-watered and water-limited conditions. However, there was no difference in N-use efficiency between species. We suggest that stomatal conductance and leaf N content are functionally linked in these seedlings and conclude that thick leaves can, in some conditions, result in low WUE.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter K Israel ◽  
Alex Watson-Lazowski ◽  
Zhong-Hua Chen ◽  
Oula Ghannoum

We investigated how stomatal morphology and physiology control intrinsic leaf water use efficiency (iWUE) in grasses. Two C3 and six C4 grasses were grown at ambient (400 μl L-1) or glacial CO2 (180 μl L-1) and high (1000 μmol m-2 s-1) or low light intensity (200 μmol m-2 s-1). C4 grasses tended to have higher iWUE and CO2 assimilation rates, and lower stomatal conductance (gs), operational stomatal aperture (aop) and guard cell K+ influx rate relative to C3 grasses, while stomatal size (SS) and stomatal density (SD) did not vary according to the photosynthetic type. Overall, iWUE and gs depended most on aop and density of open stomata. In turn, aop correlated with K+ influx, stomatal opening speed on transition to high light and SS. Species with higher SD had smaller and faster-opening stomata. Although C4 grasses operated with lower gs and aop at ambient CO2, they showed a greater potential to open stomata relative to maximal stomatal conductance (gmax), indicating heightened stomatal sensitivity and control. We uncover novel links between aop, gs, iWUE and K+ influx amongst grasses and differential K+ influx responses of C4 guard cells to low light, revealing molecular targets for breeding crops with high iWUE.


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