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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Water Management and Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #402751
Research Project: Improving Crop Performance and Precision Irrigation Management in Semi-Arid Regions through Data-Driven Research, AI, and Integrated Models

Location: Water Management and Systems Research

Title: Precipitation, solar radiation, and their interaction modify leaf hydraulic efficiency-safety trade-off across angiosperms at the global scale

Author
item JIN, YI - South China Botanical Garden
item QING, YE - South China Botanical Garden
item LIU, XIAORONG - Sichuan University
item LIU, HUI - South China Botanical Garden
item Gleason, Sean
item HE, PENGCHENG - South China Botanical Garden
item XINGYUN, LIANG - South China Botanical Garden
item WU, GUILIN - South China Botanical Garden

Submitted to: New Phytologist
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/28/2024
Publication Date: 11/20/2024
Citation: Jin, Y., Qing, Y., Liu, X., Liu, H., Gleason, S.M., He, P., Xingyun, L., Wu, G. 2024. Precipitation, solar radiation, and their interaction modify leaf hydraulic efficiency-safety trade-off across angiosperms at the global scale. New Phytologist. 244(6):2267-2277. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20213.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20213

Interpretive Summary: Plants need water to grow and survive. Plant leaves have a maximum capacity for moving water, known as leaf "hydraulic efficiency". However, if a leaf is too efficient at moving water, it can also be at risk of losing too much water and dying. This creates a trade-off where plants need to balance efficiency with safety. Different factors like leaf structure, climate, and climate variability can affect this trade-off. This study looked at data from plants around the world and found that there is a trade-off between efficiency and safety, but this varies depending on where plants live. Plants in wet areas with less sunlight invest more in safety, while plants in dry areas with more sunlight invest more in efficiency. This study helps us understand how plants adapt to different environments and how they balance the need for water with the risk of losing it.

Technical Abstract: Trade-off between leaf hydraulic efficiency (maximum leaf hydraulic conductance, Kleaf) and safety (the water potential at which 50% of Kleaf is lost, i.e., P50) reflects plants growth and survival strategies; however, the strength and direction of this trade-off has not been consistent across studies. Leaf anatomical and biochemical traits, climatic variables, and high within-region variability have been hypothesized to impact this trade-off. Yet, no study has directly tested these hypotheses at the global scale. In this study, we compiled Kleaf and P50, as well as other leaf and branch related functional traits, for 404 observations of 362 species from 90 sites world-wide, and tested if climate and functional traits were associated with departure from the proposed trade-off between Kleaf and P50. We found a trade-off between Kleaf and P50 (R2 = 0.144, P < 0.001), such that species with higher Kleaf tended to also have lower hydraulic safety (P50). Importantly, departure from this trade-off (i.e., residual variation orthogonal to the trade-off) was associated with mean annual precipitation (MAP) and solar radiation (SR), as well as their interaction, i.e., the combined effect size of these climate variables exceeded the sum of their individual effects. Specifically, species from wet habitats with low solar radiation exhibited higher P50 (less “safe”) at a given Kleaf, whereas species from dry and high solar radiation conditions exhibited lower P50 (“safer”) at a given Kleaf. Aligned with these climate effects, species from dry and high SR habitats (e.g., desert, tropical savanna) invested more in vasculature (i.e., higher vein density), dry leaf mass per area, and osmotic regulation, which are traits associated with achieving a higher level of safety/redundancy without compromising hydraulic efficiency. The opposite traits were found to be associated with species from wet habitats with low SR, e.g., subtropical monsoon forest and montane rainforest. Kleaf was more mutable than P50 within biomes, which also weakened the trade-off. Our study demonstrates the important role of leaf hydraulic strategies in plant adaption to different environments and improves our understanding of the geographic distribution of plant hydraulic strategies at the global scale.