Speaker
Description
As climate change progresses, drought events are becoming more frequent, and water scarcity is increasingly affecting plant productivity and survival. Plants access water through their root systems, which involve various root economic traits related to belowground resource acquisition. Therefore, it is critical to study the role of key root traits involved in water uptake—such as root system architecture, specific root length (SRL), mean rooting depth (MRD), and root tissue density (RTD)—in conferring drought resistance. Moreover, water transport is regulated by hydraulic traits such as turgor loss point and root shrinkage. However, it remains unclear (1) how fine root traits mediate drought resistance, and (2) how they are linked to hydraulic traits. We expect that traits associated with the fast end of the conservation gradient in root economic space support drought recovery, while slow traits relate to drought resistance. As for hydraulic traits, we speculate that they do not align with either axis within the root economic space, representing an independent strategy. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a PVC-tube-based greenhouse experiment with control and drought treatments, carried out in three phases: establishment, drought, and re-watering to measure drought resistance and resilience. The experiment included 20 selected grassland species representing four functional groups (tall herbs, short herbs, grasses, and legumes). We measured classical root economic traits ex situ and assessed biomass allocation and above-ground response traits, such as leaf fluorescence and leaf production rate, in situ. Our results show that total root length significantly decreased under drought conditions and later overcompensated during the re-watering phase. A similar trend was observed in above-ground traits: both fluorescence and leaf production rate declined during drought, indicating stress, but overcompensated after re-watering. Additionally, we found that hydraulic traits do not align with the root economic space, highlighting their independent role.
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| Poster Presentation Option | Yes, I’m willing to present as a poster. |
