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Water loss regulation to soil drought associated with xylem vulnerability to cavitation in temperate ring-porous and diffuse-porous tree seedlings

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Sustainable stomatal opening despite xylem cavitation occurs in ring-porous species and stomatal closure prior to cavitation in diffuse-porous species during soil drought.

Abstract

To elucidate the relationship between water loss regulation and vulnerability to cavitation associated with xylem structure, stomatal conductance (g s), defoliation, vulnerability curves, and vessel features were measured on seedlings of ring-porous Zelkova serrata and Melia azedarach, and diffuse-porous Betula platyphylla var. japonica, Cerasus jamasakura and Carpinus tschonoskii. Under prolonged drought conditions, the percentage loss of hydraulic conductivity (PLC) increased and g s decreased gradually with decreasing predawn (Ψpd) or xylem water potential (Ψxylem) in Z. serrata. During the gentle increase of PLC in M. azedarach, g s increased in the early stages of dehydration while leaves were partly shed. A sharp reduction in g s was observed before the onset of an increase in the PLC for drying plants of the three diffuse-porous species, suggesting cavitation avoidance by stomatal regulation. In the ring-porous species, xylem-specific hydraulic conductivity (K s) was higher, whereas the vessel multiple fractions, the ratio of the number of grouped vessels to total vessels, was lower than that in the diffuse-porous species, suggesting that many were distributed as solitary vessels. This may explain the gradual increase in the PLC with decreasing Ψxylem because isolated vessels provide less opportunity for air seeding. Different water loss regulation to soil drought was identified among the species, with potential mechanisms being sustainable gas exchange at the expense of xylem dysfunction or partial leaf shedding, and the avoidance of xylem cavitation by strict stomatal regulation. These were linked to vulnerability to cavitation that appears to be governed by xylem structural properties.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Keiji Sakamoto and Dr. Muneto Hirobe for their helpful comments. We also thank Dr. Shogo Imada, Dr. Fumiko Iwanaga, the staff of the Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, and Yuki Murakami, Yuma Yamaguchi, Ichido Yoshimori, Yasuaki Akaji, Marina Itohara, Akiko Kobayashi, Satoshi Sasaki, Shoko Masaki, Yasuko Yoshioka, and Tomo Aihara for their technical and sustained support during the experiments.

This work was funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellows (21.5030) to M.O. and was conducted under the Cooperative Research Program of the Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University.

Conflict of interest

None declared.

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Author notes

  1. Mayumi Ogasa

    Present address: Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, 277-8563, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Mayumi Ogasa

  2. Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Naoko H. Miki & Ken Yoshikawa

  3. Faculty of Agriculture, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Maria Okamoto

  4. Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Tottori, 680-0001, Japan

    Norikazu Yamanaka

Authors
  1. Mayumi Ogasa
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  2. Naoko H. Miki
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  4. Norikazu Yamanaka
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  5. Ken Yoshikawa
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Correspondence to Mayumi Ogasa.

Additional information

Communicated by M. Zwieniecki.

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Ogasa, M., Miki, N.H., Okamoto, M. et al. Water loss regulation to soil drought associated with xylem vulnerability to cavitation in temperate ring-porous and diffuse-porous tree seedlings. Trees 28, 461–469 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-013-0963-0

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