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Forests
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Tree Water Physiology and Ecology - Xylem Structure and Function
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Tree Water Physiology and Ecology - Xylem Structure and Function

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 December 2023) | Viewed by 4755

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Jing Cai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China
Interests: plant hydraulics; xylem anatomy; nonstructural carbohydrates; stomatal regulation; plant growth
Dr. Han Zhao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
Interests: xylem anatomy; hydraulic conductance; cavitation resistance; growth rate; gas exchange
Dr. Steven McNulty

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), Southeast Climate Hub, 3041 E Cornwallis Rd Research Triangle Park, Raleigh, NC 27709, USA
Interests: carbon sequestration; forest; ecosystem; climate change; nitrogen cycling; forest hydrology; adaptive management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The evolution of highly specialized vascular tissue (i.e., xylem) enabled vascular plants to lift water to heights over 100 m without the help of a pump. The elaborate structure of xylem conduits ensures the supply of large amounts of water to the photosynthetic organs, which will have a significant impact on plant performance, forest community/ecosystem processes, and global water/carbon cycle. Research on xylem structure and function has been active for decades, and has become a hot topic of plant water physiology because of the rapid global change.

There is a large and growing body of work on xylem structure and function to explore the mechanism of water transport, the implications for tree growth and death, the variation of water use strategies in different environments, and the response and adaptation of plants to global change. However, our understanding of how xylem structure and function respond to environmental changes on spatial, temporal, and succession scales is still limited. To advance the study of tree water physiology and ecology, more studies are needed to reveal the mechanism of water use in trees and its implications for plant, community, and ecosystem functions.

With this Special Issue of Forests, we aim to provide new insights into xylem structure and function. Manuscripts are welcomed in the form of original research or review papers that address novel aspects of xylem structure and function at the whole-tree, forest community, and ecosystem level, especially in the context of global climate change.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

1) Linkages between xylem structure and function and whole-tree performance, community or ecosystem processes.

2) Novel methods in the research of xylem structure and function.

3) Plasticity of xylem structure and function along environmental gradients.

4) Variation in water-use strategies of trees and their adaptation mechanism under global climate change.

Prof. Dr. Jing Cai
Dr. Han Zhao
Dr. Steven McNulty
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • tree water relations
  • tree hydraulics
  • xylem structure
  • xylem function
  • global change
  • whole-plant performance
  • community assembly
  • ecosystem function

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2473 KiB  
Article
Freshwater Uptake of Mangrove Growing in an Extremely Arid Area
by Yasuhiro Asakura, Ko Hinokidani and Yasuhiro Nakanishi
Forests 2023, 14(2), 359; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020359 - 11 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1506
Abstract
This study evaluated the freshwater use of two mangrove species (R. mucronate: Rhizophora mucronata and A. marina: Avicennia marina) growing in a coastal area of Djibouti City and on Moucha Island in Djibouti. We accomplished this by comparing hydrogen [...] Read more.
This study evaluated the freshwater use of two mangrove species (R. mucronate: Rhizophora mucronata and A. marina: Avicennia marina) growing in a coastal area of Djibouti City and on Moucha Island in Djibouti. We accomplished this by comparing hydrogen and oxygen stable isotope ratios (δ2H and δ18O) in the body water with those of creek water, soil water, groundwater, and rainwater samples. Line-conditioned excess (lc-excess) was calculated for the δ2H and δ18O values of the groundwater and rainwater samples. Although two regression lines were drawn using the δ2H and δ18O values of the plant body water as well as the environmental water, no significant differences were found, suggesting that the effects of isotope fractionation due to evaporation in all the samples were almost similar. Comparison of lc-excess and δ18O suggested that the body water from the two mangrove species growing on Moucha Is. were strongly influenced by seawater, but contained some freshwater sources other than the seawater, the soil water, and the creek water. It was also found that Avicennia marina growing in the coastal area was strongly influenced by groundwater. The origin of the freshwater absorbed by the mangroves on the island was not clear, but it could be groundwater recharged in a faraway place. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tree Water Physiology and Ecology - Xylem Structure and Function)
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16 pages, 3596 KiB  
Article
Further Test of Pneumatic Method in Constructing Vulnerability Curves Using Six Tree Species with Contrasting Xylem Anatomy
by Han Zhao, Yueyang Li, Suhui Liao, Zaimin Jiang and Jing Cai
Forests 2023, 14(2), 293; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020293 - 02 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1400
Abstract
The pneumatic method is a novel method determining vulnerability to embolism in plants, yet it remains unclear whether this method is suitable for all species with different xylem anatomy. In this study, using six tree species with contrasting xylem anatomy, including four vessel-bearing [...] Read more.
The pneumatic method is a novel method determining vulnerability to embolism in plants, yet it remains unclear whether this method is suitable for all species with different xylem anatomy. In this study, using six tree species with contrasting xylem anatomy, including four vessel-bearing species (diffuse-porous wood and ring-porous wood) and two tracheid-bearing species (non-porous wood), we test the reliability of the pneumatic method by comparing to hydraulic methods and also considering turgor loss point and native embolism. Vessel length distribution and cut-open vessel volume were also evaluated using the silicone injection technique. Additionally, we also synthesized published data to find out the consistency between the pneumatic method and hydraulic methods. Results showed that there was a maximum 10-folds difference in mean vessel length and mean vessel diameter varying from 30 to 56 μm among species. The estimated open vessel volume ranges from 0.064 to 0.397 mL, with a maximum of 14% of the tube vacuum reservoir. For four vessel-bearing species, the pneumatic method showed good consistency with hydraulic methods, and this consistency was evidenced by turgor loss point and native embolism. For two tracheid-bearing species, the pneumatic method significantly overestimated vulnerability because of the bad consistencies with hydraulic methods and plant water relations. Data synthesis of 56 species also suggested that the pneumatic method can accurately measure the embolism vulnerability of vessel-bearing species but not for tracheid-bearing species. Our study provided further evidence that the pneumatic method is accurate for most vessel-bearing species and thus has the potential to be widely used in the plant hydraulics field. However, we proposed that the precise calculation of air discharge volume should take into account the volume of open vessels for species with wide and long vessels. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tree Water Physiology and Ecology - Xylem Structure and Function)
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17 pages, 5119 KiB  
Article
The Photosynthesis of Populus euphratica Oliv. Is Not Limited by Drought Stress in the Hyper-Arid Zone of Northwest China
by Guanlong Gao, Qi Feng, Xiande Liu, Tengfei Yu and Rongxin Wang
Forests 2022, 13(12), 2096; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122096 - 08 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1151
Abstract
The Ejin Oasis is located in the lower reaches of the Heihe River Basin of northwestern China. It is one of the most arid regions in the world, and Populus euphratica Oliv. is the foundation species of the desert riparian forests there. The photosynthesis [...] Read more.
The Ejin Oasis is located in the lower reaches of the Heihe River Basin of northwestern China. It is one of the most arid regions in the world, and Populus euphratica Oliv. is the foundation species of the desert riparian forests there. The photosynthesis of P. euphratica is one of the first physiological processes that is most likely to be affected by the extremely arid climate conditions. The factors impacting photosynthesis can be divided into stomatal and non-stomatal limitations. In order to investigate whether the photosynthesis of P. euphratica was limited and, if so, whether this limitation was caused by drought stress in the P. euphratica Forest Reserve on the Ejin River, we analyzed stomatal, non-stomatal, and relative stomatal limitations (reflecting the relative importance of the stoma in controlling the processes of photosynthesis) of photosynthesis. The results show that, at the beginning of the midday depression of photosynthesis, the values of stomatal limitation of photosynthesis (Ls) peaked, with its predominance being supported by sub-stomatal CO2 concentrations (Ci) being at a minimum. Thereafter, Ls decreased and non-stomatal limitation (Ci/stomatal conductance (gs)) increased sharply, indicating that the non-stomatal limitation of photosynthesis was predominant. Both Ls and relative stomatal limitation of photosynthesis increased in the morning, and then decreased, whereas Ci/gs showed the opposite trend. We concluded that P. euphratica did not experience drought stress by analyzing leaf water potential, groundwater table, and the decoupling coefficient (a parameter characterizing the coupling degree between vegetation canopy and atmospheric water vapor flux); however, the Ls values of P. euphratica were much greater than those of other species. This was likely because P. euphratica has a relatively conservative water use strategy even when growing under favorable water conditions. Extremely high temperatures caused the closure of the stoma to reduce transpiration, resulting in more intense stomatal limitations of photosynthesis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tree Water Physiology and Ecology - Xylem Structure and Function)
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