The interactions between plants and their environment in biogeochemical cycles have attained substantial interest from soil scientists, hydrologists, plant physiologists, ecologists and climatologists in recent years. This interest stems from the need of improving the predictions of plant-related models to face fundamental environmental and agricultural issues, like for instance agriculture in water-limited conditions, contaminant transport, and the impact of global change on plant mediated water fluxes in terrestrial systems. Emerging imaging and experimental techniques, and new developments in the understanding of biological controls on water uptake have increased knowledge on transport processes in plants and their influence on soil-root and leaf-atmosphere interactions. However, quantitative approaches based on understanding fundamental biophysical processes at the plant level to predict root water and nutrient uptake are still lacking.
This session aims to interest researchers who investigate plant related processes from rhizosphere to the field scale, and bring together scientists from multiple disciplines to discuss and better understand water and nutrient transfer in the soil, at the soil-root interface and through the plant. This includes:
- Novel experimental techniques and geochemical approaches for assessing below-ground plant processes
- Water fluxes through the soil and plant: from the single root to the field scale
- Understanding plant uptake under water and nutrient scarcity
- Approaches for soil-plant models
- Bridging the gap between biology and soil physics through numerical modeling
- Impact of plant uptake on solute transport
- etc...