Plant-PET to investigate phloem vulnerability to drought in Populus tremula under changing climate regimes.
Tree Physiol
; 39(2): 211-221, 2019 02 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30597097
ABSTRACT
Phloem transport is of great importance in trees to distribute assimilated carbon across the entire tree. Nevertheless, knowledge of phloem is incomplete, because of the complexity of measuring its transport and characteristics. Only few studies have addressed how phloem transport might alter under climatic changes, with most data originating from theoretical studies. We measured phloem characteristics in leaves of young Populus tremula L. trees grown during 5 months under ambient (TA, 404 ppm ± 5) and elevated (TE, 659 ppm ± 3) atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]) using a combination of positron emission tomography (PET) and compartmental modelling. Short-term phloem dynamics were measured in vivo and non-invasively using the short-lived isotope of carbon, 11C (half-life 20.4 min). Trees were scanned in well-watered and dry conditions to assess changes in phloem characteristics induced by drought. Reliability of the PET-derived results was verified with reported observations in the literature. Phloem speed was highest in well-watered TE trees and strongly reduced by 81% under drought, whereas phloem speed reduced by 61% in TA trees at the same level of drought. These findings led us to speculate that phloem transport in TE trees might be more vulnerable to drought. We discuss how a higher phloem vulnerability to drought in a changing climate could impact tree hydraulic functioning. Taken together our results suggest that trees grown for 5 months under elevated [CO2] seem to be less well-acclimated to face projected hotter droughts in a changing climate.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Trees
/
Climate Change
/
Populus
/
Phloem
/
Droughts
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
Tree Physiol
Journal subject:
BOTANICA
/
FISIOLOGIA
Year:
2019
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Belgium