U.S. flagAn official website of the United States government
                    Here's how you know **Official websites use .gov**
                            
                            A **.gov** website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
 **Secure .gov websites use HTTPS**
                            
                            A **lock** (                            
                              A locked padlock                                                      
                            
                            ) or **https://** means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Menu Agricultural Research Service
						
                    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
 Water Management and Systems Research: Fort Collins, CO
 close



    Research

                    Research Projects
                                    Publications
                                    Collaborations
                                    News
                                    Software
                People

                    Staff Listing
                                    Careers


        


                    Publications
                    NewsSearch small
                    Search
            
            ARS Home
                                About ARS
                                Contact Us




ARS Home Plains Area Fort Collins, Colorado Center for Agricultural Resources Research Water Management and Systems Research Research Publications at this Location





- ARS National Programs
- Search for a scientific manuscript
- Search for a research project
- ARS Software
- Programs and Projects
- Collaborations
- Subjects of Investigation
- Publications

Title:   Author  item
                                            Gleason, Seanitem
                                            BLACKMAN, CHRIS - Western Sydney University
  Submitted to: American Society of Agronomy Meetings
                                    Publication Type: Abstract Only
                                    Publication Acceptance Date: 6/15/2015
                                    Publication  Date: 6/15/2015
                                    Citation: Gleason, S.M., Blackman, C.J. 2015. How well do plant hydraulic traits predict species’ distributions across the world. American Society of Agronomy Meetings. 284-3.Interpretive Summary:
                                Technical Abstract: Climate–trait associations are becoming ever-more important as plant breeding and gene modification efforts enable the targeting of specific traits and specific genes.  It is well-understood that climate represents a constraint to the evolution of plant species.  Although this statement is intuitive, here we ask what is the outcome of this constraint on the structure and functioning of plants?  In particular, how has the heterogeneous distribution of water across the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems affected the distribution of plant hydraulic traits present in those ecosystems.    
We gathered angiosperm trait data taken from published and unpublished reports and use simple linear models to predict mean climate values from mean trait values.  We then evaluate which hydraulic traits appear most closely aligned with commonly measured and readily accessible climate measurements.  
Embolism resistance of leaves was strongly correlated with mean annual precipitation (MAP) across angiosperms from Chile and Australia (r2 = 0.68, n = 92).  The predictive power of this variable was improved further (r2 = 0.72) when “aridity” (MAP / potential evaporation) was used as the climate variable.  Across a subset of the world’s angiosperm species, embolism resistance of stem xylem was a poor predictor of habitat MAP (r2 = 0.06, n = 766), as well as aridity (r2 = 0.033; n = 766).  However, the predictive power of this trait was markedly improved if the soil water potential (measured as “pre-dawn” leaf water potential) was used in the analysis, rather than MAT or aridity (r2 = 0.24, n = 202).  
Although plant hydraulic traits appear to be reasonably good predictors of climate, much across-species variation in climate remains unexplained by a single trait, i.e., bivariate axis.  This suggests that other traits not examined in this study (e.g., capacitance, cuticle transpiration, biomass partitioning) may also represent important axes of variation.


Return to top


Connect with ARS Sign up


ARS Home
                            USDA.gov
                            Plain Writing
                            Policies & Links
                            Civil Rights Statements
                            FOIA
                            Accessibility Statement
                            Privacy Policy
                            Non-Discrimination Statement
                            Quality of Information
                            USA.gov
                            WhiteHouse.gov