Title: Opportunities, challenges and pitfalls in characterizing plant water–use strategies

Abstract

Abstract Classifying the diverse ways that plants respond to hydrologic stress into generalizable ‘water‐use strategies’ has long been an eco‐physiological research goal. While many schemes for describing water‐use strategies have proven to be quite useful, they are also associated with uncertainties regarding their theoretical basis and their connection to plant carbon and water relations. In this review, we discuss the factors that shape plant water stress responses and assess the approaches used to classify a plant's water‐use strategy, paying particular attention to the popular but controversial concept of a continuum from isohydry to anisohydry. A generalizable and predictive framework for assessing plant water‐use strategies has been historically elusive, yet recent advances in plant physiology and hydraulics provide the field with a way past these obstacles. Specifically, we promote the idea that many metrics that quantify water‐use strategies are highly dynamic and emergent from the interaction between plant traits and environmental conditions, and that this complexity has historically hindered the development of a generalizable water‐use strategy framework. This idea is explored using a plant hydraulics model to identify: (a) distinct temporal phases in plant hydraulic regulation during drought that underpin dynamic water‐use responses, and (b) how variation in both traits andmore » environmental forcings can significantly alter common metrics used to characterize plant water‐use strategies. This modelling exercise can bridge the divide between various conceptualizations of water‐use strategies and provide targeted hypotheses to advance the understanding and quantification of plant water status regulation across spatial and temporal scales. Finally, we describe research frontiers that are necessary to improve the predictive capacity of the plant water‐use strategy concept, including further investigation into the below‐ground determinants of plant water relations, targeted data collection efforts and the potential to scale these concepts from individuals to whole regions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.« less

Authors:

Kannenberg, Steven A.  ^[1];

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Guo, Jessica S.  ^[2];

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Novick, Kimberly A.  ^[3];

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Anderegg, William R. L.  ^[1];

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Feng, Xue  ^[4];

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Kennedy, Daniel  ^[5];

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Konings, Alexandra G.  ^[6];

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Martínez‐Vilalta, Jordi  ^[7];

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Matheny, Ashley M.  ^[8]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
2. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
3. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (United States)
4. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
5. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
6. Stanford University, CA (United States)
7. CREAF, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Catalonia (Spain); Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain)
8. University of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)

Publication Date:

2021-10-12

Research Org.:

Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); NSF DEB; USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Programme, Ecosystem Services and Agro-Ecosystem Management

OSTI Identifier:

1991289

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1838547

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0022052; SC0020116; 1942133; 2045610; 1714972; 1802880; 2003017; 2018-67019-27850

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Functional Ecology

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 36; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 0269-8463

Publisher:

British Ecological Society; Wiley

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; drought; isohydry; plant hydraulics; water potential; water use strategy