Drought-driven forests and crops mortality is one of the most dramatic consequences of climate change, on global scale. Increase in frequency and intensity of heat waves and drought events triggers two main interrelated physiological mechanisms leading to plant death: hydraulic failure and negative carbon balance. Therefore, one of the most urgent researchers ‘challenge is to identify simple and reliable indicators of the plant mortality risk, easy to detect at large scale and related to the two main physiological mechanisms that cause the plant death [1]. In the last few years, I, with the collaboration of other researchers, have been studying the reliability of relative water content (RWC) as a potential indicator of plant mortality risk. Recorded results in different studies are encouraging. Leaf water content is a reliable parameter for predicting the risk of leaf hydraulic damage of two Salvia species as well as the RWC values of the roots, in the same two Salvia species, are robust indicators of the whole plant hydraulic conductance decrease [2,3]. Furthermore, similar RWC values induced severe damages to cell membranes, hampering the rehydration capacity and, thus causing, the plant death in three different species: Helianthus annnus L., Populus nigra L. and Quercus ilex L. Overall, these results provide data supporting to the use of remotely-sensed vegetation water content for large-scale monitoring of forests and crops mortality risk. Last but not least, the RWC value leading to loss of cellular rehydration capacity is a useful unexplored parameter for improving our knowledge on the strategy used by invasive alien species to compete with the native species of the drought-prone regions. 1. Hartmann H. et al. (2022). Climate change risks to global forest health: emergence of unexpected events of elevated tree mortality worldwide. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 73, 25.1–25.30. 2. Abate E. et al. (2021). Too dry to survive: leaf hydraulic failure in two Salvia species can be predicted on the basis of water content. Plant Physiol. Biochem. 166, 215-224. 3. Abate E. et al. (2021). When water availability is low, two Mediterranean Salvia species rely on root hydraulics. Plants 10, 1888
Plant water content: a useful tool for predicting the risk of drought-induced mortality...and not only!
Trifilo' Patrizia
2022-01-01
Abstract
Drought-driven forests and crops mortality is one of the most dramatic consequences of climate change, on global scale. Increase in frequency and intensity of heat waves and drought events triggers two main interrelated physiological mechanisms leading to plant death: hydraulic failure and negative carbon balance. Therefore, one of the most urgent researchers ‘challenge is to identify simple and reliable indicators of the plant mortality risk, easy to detect at large scale and related to the two main physiological mechanisms that cause the plant death [1]. In the last few years, I, with the collaboration of other researchers, have been studying the reliability of relative water content (RWC) as a potential indicator of plant mortality risk. Recorded results in different studies are encouraging. Leaf water content is a reliable parameter for predicting the risk of leaf hydraulic damage of two Salvia species as well as the RWC values of the roots, in the same two Salvia species, are robust indicators of the whole plant hydraulic conductance decrease [2,3]. Furthermore, similar RWC values induced severe damages to cell membranes, hampering the rehydration capacity and, thus causing, the plant death in three different species: Helianthus annnus L., Populus nigra L. and Quercus ilex L. Overall, these results provide data supporting to the use of remotely-sensed vegetation water content for large-scale monitoring of forests and crops mortality risk. Last but not least, the RWC value leading to loss of cellular rehydration capacity is a useful unexplored parameter for improving our knowledge on the strategy used by invasive alien species to compete with the native species of the drought-prone regions. 1. Hartmann H. et al. (2022). Climate change risks to global forest health: emergence of unexpected events of elevated tree mortality worldwide. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 73, 25.1–25.30. 2. Abate E. et al. (2021). Too dry to survive: leaf hydraulic failure in two Salvia species can be predicted on the basis of water content. Plant Physiol. Biochem. 166, 215-224. 3. Abate E. et al. (2021). When water availability is low, two Mediterranean Salvia species rely on root hydraulics. Plants 10, 1888Pubblicazioni consigliate
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