Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 29, Pages 7551-7556Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1721728115
Keywords
adaptation; allometry; climate change; forest dieback; embolism vulnerability
Categories
Funding
- University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States [CN-15-1428]
- Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigacion e Innovacion Tecnologica of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico [IT200515]
- Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (Mexico) [32404, 237061]
- Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (Brazil) [2014/14778-6, 2015/14954-1]
- Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cientifico y Tecnologico (Chile) [1160329]
- Programa de Becas Posdoctorales, Direccion General de Asuntos del Personal Academico-Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
- Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad Grant [FPDI 2013-16600]
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Understanding how plants survive drought and cold is increasingly important as plants worldwide experience dieback with drought in moist places and grow taller with warming in cold ones. Crucial in plant climate adaptation are the diameters of water-transporting conduits. Sampling 537 species across climate zones dominated by angiosperms, we find that plant size is unambiguously the main driver of conduit diameter variation. And because taller plants have wider conduits, and wider conduits within species are more vulnerable to conduction-blocking embolisms, taller conspecifics should be more vulnerable than shorter ones, a prediction we confirm with a plantation experiment. As a result, maximum plant size should be short under drought and cold, which cause embolism, or increase if these pressures relax. That conduit diameter and embolism vulnerability are inseparably related to plant size helps explain why factors that interact with conduit diameter, such as drought or warming, are altering plant heights worldwide.
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