EGU21-4192
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4192
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Declining soil-root hydraulic conductance drives stomatal closure of tomato under drought 

Mohanned Abdalla1,2, Andrea Carminati3, Gaochao Cai1,4, Mathieu Javaux5,6, and Mutez Ahmed1,4
Mohanned Abdalla et al.
  • 1Chair of Soil Physics, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, 95447, Bayreuth, Germany.
  • 2Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, Khartoum North 13314 Shambat, Sudan.
  • 3Physics of Soils and Terrestrial Ecosystems, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Universitätstr. 16, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • 4Biogeochemistry of Agroecosystems, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
  • 5Earth and Life Institute-Environmental Science, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain la Neuve, Belgium.
  • 6Agrosphere (IBG-3), Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Juelich, Germany.

The fundamental question as to what triggers stomatal closure during soil drying remains contentious. Thus, we urgently need to improve our understanding of stomatal response to water deficits in soil and atmosphere. Here, we investigated the role of soil-plant hydraulic conductance (Ksp) on transpiration (E) and stomata regulation. We used a root pressure chamber to measure the relation between E, leaf xylem water potential (ψleaf-x) and soil water potential (ψsoil) in tomato. Additional measurements of ψleaf-x were performed with unpressurized plants. A soil-plant hydraulic model was used to simulate E(ψleaf-x) for decreasing ψsoil. In wet soils, E(ψleaf-x) had a constant slope while in dry soils the slope decreased, with ψleaf-x rapidly and nonlinearly decreasing for moderate increases in E. The ψleaf-x measured in pressurized and unpressurized plants matched well, which indicates that the shoot hydraulic conductance did not decrease during soil drying and that the decrease in Ksp is caused by a decrease in soil-root conductance. The decrease of E matched well the onset of hydraulic nonlinearity. Our findings demonstrate that stomatal closure prevents the drop in ψleaf-x caused by a decrease in Ksp and elucidate a strong correlation between stomatal regulation and belowground hydraulic limitation.

How to cite: Abdalla, M., Carminati, A., Cai, G., Javaux, M., and Ahmed, M.: Declining soil-root hydraulic conductance drives stomatal closure of tomato under drought , EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-4192, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4192, 2021.

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