Oxygen isotope signatures of transpiration (δ E ) are powerful tracers of water movement from plant to global scale. However, a mechanistic understanding of how leaf morphological/physiological traits effect δ E is missing. A laser spectrometer was coupled to a leaf-level gas-exchange system to measure fluxes and isotopic signatures of plant transpiration under controlled conditions in seven di...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Grapevines growing in Australia are often exposed to very high temperatures and the question of how the gas exchange processes adjust to these conditions is not well understood. The aim was to develop a model of photosynthesis and transpiration in relation to temperature to quantify the impact of the growing conditions on vine performance. METHODOLOGY Leaf gas exchange was...

The use of modern gas analysis instrumentation makes it possible to obtain continuous recordings of transpiration (3, 6, 8, 12, 13, 23) and photosynthesis (4, 5, 16, 19) from intact portions of higher plants. The high sensitivity and rapid response of these instruments permits one to determine rather subtle effects of various internal or environmental factors on physiological processes involvin...

Plants acclimate rapidly to stressful environmental conditions. Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are predicted to influence tolerance to stresses such as soil salinity but the mechanisms are poorly understood. To resolve this issue, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants were grown under ambient (380 μmol mol(-1)) or high (760 μmol mol(-1)) CO2 in the absence or presence of sodium chloride (100m...

Pathogenesis of Pseudoperonospora cubensis causing downy mildew of cucumber resulted in changes in the metabolic processes within cucumber leaves including the transpiration rate. Due to the negative correlation between transpiration rate and leaf temperature, digital infrared thermography permitted a non-invasive monitoring and an indirect visualization of downy mildew development. Depending o...

Seedlings of a conifer (Pinus radiata D. Don) and a broad leaf angiosperm (Eucalyptus globulus Labill.) were grown for 100 days in two growth cabinets at 45 or 65% relative humidity. The seedlings were exposed to treatments designed to modify carbon assimilation rates and capacities, stomatal conductance and transpiration to test conceptual models that attempt to clarify the interpretation of c...

Stomatal complexes in the epidermes of aerial plant parts are critical sites for the regulation of gas exchange between the plant and the atmosphere. Stomata consist of microscopic pores, each flanked by a pair of guard cells. Guard cells can increase or decrease the size of the pore via changes in their turgor status, hence regulating both CO2 entry into the leaf and transpiration, or the loss...

Increasing the nitrate (N) concentration in the rooting substrate above deficiency decreased stomatal conductance and leaf growth rate compared with sufficient N in maize seedlings (Zea mays L.) growing in drying substrate. Novel effects were detected when N in the non-deficient range was supplied directly to the xylem of detached shoots: concentrations above 2.0 mol m-3 KNO3 reduced transpirat...

We examined relationships between stem diameter, sapwood area, leaf area and transpiration in a 15-year-old mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans F. Muell.) forest containing silver wattle (Acacia dealbata Link.) as a suppressed overstory species and mountain hickory (Acacia frigescens J.H. Willis) as an understory species. Stem diameter explained 93% of the variation in leaf area, 96% of the variat...

Cottonwood (Populus spp.) forests are conspicuous and functionally important elements of riparian vegetation throughout much of the western U.S. Understanding how transpiration by this vegetation type responds to environmental forcing is important for determining the water balance dynamics of riparian ecosystems threatened by groundwater depletion. Transpiration was measured in semiarid riparia...