Leaf hydraulic vulnerability to drought is linked to site water availability across a broad range of species and climates.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Vulnerability of the leaf hydraulic pathway to water-stress-induced dysfunction is a key component of drought tolerance in plants and may be important in defining species' climatic range. However, the generality of the association between leaf hydraulic vulnerability and climate across species and sites remains to be tested. METHODS: Leaf hydraulic vulnerability to drought (P50leaf, the water potential inducing 50 % loss in hydraulic function) was measured in a diverse group of 92 woody, mostly evergreen angiosperms from sites across a wide range of habitats. These new data together with some previously published were tested against key climate indices related to water availability. Differences in within-site variability in P50leaf between sites were also examined. KEY RESULTS: Values of hydraulic vulnerability to drought in leaves decreased strongly (i.e. became more negative) with decreasing annual rainfall and increasing aridity across sites. The standard deviation in P50leaf values recorded within each site was positively correlated with increasing aridity. P50leaf was also a good indicator of the climatic envelope across each species' distributional range as well as their dry-end distributional limits within Australia, although this relationship was not consistently detectable within sites. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that species sorting processes have influenced distributional patterns of P50leaf across the rainfall spectrum, but alternative strategies for dealing with water deficit exist within sites. The strong link to aridity suggests leaf hydraulic vulnerability may influence plant distributions under future climates.

Leaf hydraulic vulnerability influences species' bioclimatic limits in a diverse group of woody angiosperms.

The ability of plants to maintain water flow through leaves under water stress-induced tension (assessed as the leaf hydraulic vulnerability; P50(leaf)) is intimately linked with survival. We examined the significance of P50(leaf) as an adaptive trait in influencing the dry-end distributional limits of cool temperate woody angiosperm species. We also examined differences in within-site variability in P50(leaf) between two high-rainfall montane rainforest sites in Tasmania and Peru, respectively. A significant relationship between P50(leaf) and the 5th percentile of mean annual rainfall across each species distribution was found in Tasmania, suggesting that P50(leaf) influences species climatic limits. Furthermore, a strong correlation between P50(leaf) and the minimum rainfall availability was found using five phylogenetically independent species pairs in wet and dry evergreen tree species, suggesting that rainfall is an important selective agent in the evolution of leaf hydraulic vulnerability. Greater within-site variability in P50(leaf) was found among dominant montane rainforest species in Tasmania than in Peru and this result is discussed within the context of differences in spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity and parochial historical ecology.