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Equivalence of foliar water uptake and stomatal conductance?
Author(s) -
Binks Oliver,
Coughlin Ingrid,
Mencuccini Maurizio,
Meir Patrick
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/pce.13663
Subject(s) - stomatal conductance , transpiration , conductance , canopy conductance , canopy , botany , ecosystem , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , biology , agronomy , chemistry , vapour pressure deficit , ecology , mathematics , physics , photosynthesis , combinatorics
Foliar water uptake, FWU, the uptake of atmospheric water directly into leaves, has been reported to occur in nearly 200 species spanning a wide range of ecosystems distributed globally. In order to represent FWU in land‐surface models, a conductance term is required to scale the process to the canopy level. Here we show that conductance to FWU is theoretically equivalent to stomatal conductance and that under commonly occurring conditions vapour could diffuse into leaves at rates equivalent to those reported as FWU. We therefore conclude that such ‘reverse transpiration’ could partially, or even wholly, account for FWU in some plants.