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Drought response of mesophyll conductance in forest understory species – impacts on water‐use efficiency and interactions with leaf water movement
Author(s) -
Hommel Robert,
Siegwolf Rolf,
Saurer Matthias,
Farquhar Graham D.,
Kayler Zachary,
Ferrio Juan Pedro,
Gessler Arthur
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
physiologia plantarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.351
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1399-3054
pISSN - 0031-9317
DOI - 10.1111/ppl.12160
Subject(s) - water use efficiency , understory , stomatal conductance , conductance , biology , drought resistance , botany , agronomy , photosynthesis , canopy , mathematics , combinatorics
Regulation of stomatal (g s ) and mesophyll conductance (g m ) is an efficient means for optimizing the relationship between water loss and carbon uptake in plants. We assessed water‐use efficiency ( WUE )‐based drought adaptation strategies with respect to mesophyll conductance of different functional plant groups of the forest understory. Moreover we aimed at assessing the mechanisms of and interactions between water and CO 2 conductance in the mesophyll. The facts that an increase in WUE was observed only in the two species that increased g m in response to moderate drought, and that over all five species examined, changes in mesophyll conductance were significantly correlated with the drought‐induced change in WUE , proves the importance of g m in optimizing resource use under water restriction. There was no clear correlation of mesophyll CO 2 conductance and the tortuosity of water movement in the leaf across the five species in the control and drought treatments. This points either to different main pathways for CO 2 and water in the mesophyll either to different regulation of a common pathway.