A stomatal safety-efficiency trade-off constrains responses to leaf dehydration

Christian Henry, Grace P. John, Ruihua Pan, Megan K. Bartlett, Leila R. Fletcher, Christine Scoffoni and Lawren Sack ()
Additional contact information
Christian Henry: University of California Los Angeles
Grace P. John: University of California Los Angeles
Ruihua Pan: University of California Los Angeles
Megan K. Bartlett: University of California Los Angeles
Leila R. Fletcher: University of California Los Angeles
Christine Scoffoni: University of California Los Angeles
Lawren Sack: University of California Los Angeles

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Stomata, the microvalves on leaf surfaces, exert major influences across scales, from plant growth and productivity to global carbon and water cycling. Stomatal opening enables leaf photosynthesis, and plant growth and water use, whereas plant survival of drought depends on stomatal closure. Here we report that stomatal function is constrained by a safety-efficiency trade-off, such that species with greater stomatal conductance under high water availability (gmax) show greater sensitivity to closure during leaf dehydration, i.e., a higher leaf water potential at which stomatal conductance is reduced by 50% (Ψgs50). The gmax - Ψgs50 trade-off and its mechanistic basis is supported by experiments on leaves of California woody species, and in analyses of previous studies of the responses of diverse flowering plant species around the world. Linking the two fundamental key roles of stomata—the enabling of gas exchange, and the first defense against drought—this trade-off constrains the rates of water use and the drought sensitivity of leaves, with potential impacts on ecosystems.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11006-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11006-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11006-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().