Abstract
Plant transpiration is strongly constrained by hydraulic architecture, which determines the critical threshold for cavitation. Because species vary greatly in vulnerability to cavitation, hydraulic limits to transpiration and stomatal conductance have not generally been incorporated into ecological and climate models. We measured sap flow, leaf transpiration, and vulnerability to cavitation of a variety of tree species in a well-irrigated but semi-arid urban environment in order to evaluate the generality of stomatal responses to high atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (D). We found evidence of broad patterns of stomatal responses to humidity based on systematic differences in vulnerability to cavitation. Ring-porous taxa consistently had vulnerable xylem and showed strong regulation of transpiration in response to D, while diffuse-porous taxa were less vulnerable and transpiration increased nearly linearly with D. These results correspond well to patterns in the distribution of the taxa, such as the prevalence of diffuse-porous species in riparian ecosystems, and also provide a means of representing maximum transpiration rates at varying D in broad categories of trees.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Tim Dance and Angela Allred for their assistance with fieldwork and sensor construction. This work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation grants ATM-02157658 and IBN-0416297.
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Communicated by Manuel Lerdau.
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Bush, S.E., Pataki, D.E., Hultine, K.R. et al. Wood anatomy constrains stomatal responses to atmospheric vapor pressure deficit in irrigated, urban trees. Oecologia 156, 13–20 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-0966-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-0966-5