Journal
PLANT CELL AND ENVIRONMENT
Volume 33, Issue 7, Pages 1059-1069Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3040.2010.02127.x
Keywords
Populus tremuloides; air-seeding hypothesis; pit area hypothesis; vessel diameter; Weibull functions
Categories
Funding
- Canadian Forest Service
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant
- Alberta Forestry Research Institute
- Alberta Ingenuity Equipment Grant
- Department of Renewable Resources
- University of Alberta
- China Scholarship Council
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The objective of this study was to quantify the relationship between vulnerability to cavitation and vessel diameter within a species. We measured vulnerability curves (VCs: percentage loss hydraulic conductivity versus tension) in aspen stems and measured vessel-size distributions. Measurements were done on seed-grown, 4-month-old aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx) grown in a greenhouse. VCs of stem segments were measured using a centrifuge technique and by a staining technique that allowed a VC to be constructed based on vessel diameter size-classes (D). Vessel-based VCs were also fitted to Weibull cumulative distribution functions (CDF), which provided best-fit values of Weibull CDF constants (c and b) and P-50 = the tension causing 50% loss of hydraulic conductivity. We show that P-50 = 6.166D-0.3134 (R2 = 0.995) and that b and 1/c are both linear functions of D with R2 > 0.95. The results are discussed in terms of models of VCs based on vessel D size-classes and in terms of concepts such as the 'pit area hypothesis' and vessel pathway redundancy.
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