BACKGROUND The fungicide benzovindiflupyr belongs to the class of succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors (SDHIs). Certain SDHIs have shown plant physiological effects, so-called secondary effects, that appeared to be related to the plant water status. Therefore, the effect of benzovindiflupyr on transpiration of leaves and whole wheat plants was studied under controlled conditions. Furthermore, whe...

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...

As a result of the increasing speed and magnitude in which habitats worldwide are experiencing environmental change, making accurate predictions of the effects of global change on ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them have become an important goal for ecologists. Experimental and modelling approaches aimed at understanding the linkages between factors of global change and biotic respon...

Calcium (Ca) uptake into fruit and leaves is dependent on xylemic water movement, and hence presumably driven by transpiration and growth. High leaf transpiration is thought to restrict Ca movement to low-transpiring tomato fruit, which may increase fruit susceptibility to the Ca-deficiency disorder, blossom end rot (BER). The objective of this study was to analyse the effect of reduced leaf tr...

As a result of the increasing speed and magnitude in which habitats worldwide are experiencing environmental change, making accurate predictions of the effects of global change on ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them have become an important goal for ecologists. Experimental and modelling approaches aimed at understanding the linkages between factors of global change and biotic respon...

Trees participate in mitigating the urban heat island phenomenon thanks to their transpiration and shading. This cooling potential is highly dependent on leaf area. Nevertheless, traits potentially vary across different land management practices settings, thereby challenging models used estimate thermal budgets. The present study aims investigate variability of area linden (Tilia spp.) trees, e...

We investigated changes in the pattern of stand water use in a chronosequence of four even-aged maritime pine stands, differing in age (10-, 32-, 54and 91-year old) and growing under similar environmental conditions. Extensive sap flow measurements were carried out during a period of 2 years (2001–2002), using thermal dissipation sensors located 1 m below the live crown and corrected for the ra...

BACKGROUND The functional convergence of tree transpiration has rarely been tested for tree species growing under urban conditions even though it is of significance to elucidate the relationship between functional convergence and species differences of urban trees for establishing sustainable urban forests in the context of forest water relations. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We measured sa...

Optimal flow paths obtained from percolation theory provide a powerful tool that can be used to characterize properties associated with flow such as soil hydraulic conductivity, as well as other properties influenced by flow connectivity and topology. A recently proposed scaling theory for vegetation growth appeals to the tortuosity of optimal paths from percolation theory to define the spatio-...

The use of potential transpiration models to simulate transpiration rates in areas prone to soil water deficits leads to overestimates of water use as the soil dries. Therefore, I carried out studies on Eucalyptus grandis W. Hill ex Maiden trees subjected to soil drying at two field sites in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa to determine the relation between transpiration rate and soil wa...