2024/07/24 by Shubham S. Chhajed, Ian J. Wright, Óscar Pérez‐Priego · 1 voice · 9 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Biology #Botany #Ecology #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Horticulture #Photosynthesis #Photosynthetic capacity #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Temperate climate #Transpiration #Tree-ring climate responses #Water use
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/nph.19987
published in New Phytologist 244(5), 1760-1774 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2024/07/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Summary Co‐occurring plants show wide variation in their hydraulic and photosynthetic traits. Here, we extended ‘least‐cost’ optimality theory to derive predictions for how variation in key hydraulic traits potentially affects the cost of acquiring and using water in photosynthesis and how this, in turn, should drive variation in photosynthetic traits. We tested these ideas across 18 woody species at a temperate woodland in eastern Australia, focusing on hydraulic traits representing different aspects of plant water balance, that is storage (sapwood capacitance, C S ), demand vs supply (branch leaf : sapwood area ratio, A L : A S and leaf : sapwood mass ratio and M L : M S ), access to soil water (proxied by predawn leaf water potential, Ψ PD ) and physical strength (sapwood density, WD). Species with higher A L : A S had higher ratio of leaf‐internal to ambient CO 2 concentration during photosynthesis ( c i : c a ), a trait central to the least‐cost theory framework. C S and the daily operating range of tissue water potential (∆Ψ) had an interactive effect on c i : c a . C S , WD and Ψ PD were significantly correlated with each other. These results, along with those from multivariate analyses, underscored the pivotal role leaf : sapwood allocation ( A L : A S ), and water storage ( C S ) play in coordination between plant hydraulic and photosynthetic systems. This study uniquely explored the role of hydraulic traits in predicting species‐specific photosynthetic variation based on optimality theory and highlights important mechanistic links within the plant carbon–water balance.