Flowering time and water-use efficiency (WUE) are two ecological traits that are important for plant drought response. To understand the evolutionary significance of natural genetic variation in flowering time, WUE, and WUE plasticity to drought in Arabidopsis thaliana, we addressed the following questions: (1) How are ecophysiological traits genetically correlated within and between different ...

The presence of substantial genetic variation for water-use efficiency (WUE) suggests that natural selection plays a role in maintaining alleles that affect WUE. Soil water deficit can reduce plant survival, and is likely to impose selection to increase WUE, whereas competition for resources may select for decreased WUE to ensure water acquisition. We tested the fitness consequences of natural ...

Water use efficiency (WUE) measures the trade-off between carbon gain and water loss of terrestrial ecosystems, and better understanding its dynamics and controlling factors is essential for predicting ecosystem responses to climate change. We assessed the magnitude, spatial patterns, and trends of WUE of China's terrestrial ecosystems and its responses to drought using a process-based ecosyste...

Water-use efficiency (WUE) is critical in determining the adaptation and productivity of plants in water-limited areas, either under the present climate or future global change. Data on WUE are often highly variable and a unifying and quantitative approach is needed to analyse and predict WUE for different environments. Hsiao has already proposed a set of paradigm equations based on leaf gas ex...

Aim To investigate how ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE) varies spatially under different climate conditions, and how spatial variations in WUE differ from those of transpiration-based water-use efficiency (WUEt) and transpiration-based inherent water-use efficiency (IWUEt). Location Global terrestrial ecosystems. Methods We investigated spatial patterns of WUE using two datasets of gross pr...

Bio-water saving can be defined as the reduction of crop water consumption employing biological measures. This is the focus of efforts to save water in agriculture. Different levels of water-use efficiency (WUE) have been developed. The genetic diversity of WUE has been confirmed in several crops. WUE is the basis of bio-watering and physiological WUE is the key. The degree to develop physiolog...

Water use efficiency (WUE) is an important indicator of ecosystem functioning but how ecosystem WUE responds to climate change including precipitation and nitrogen (N) deposition increases is still unknown. To investigate such responses, an experiment with a randomized block design with water (spring snowfall or summer water addition) and nitrogen addition was conducted in a temperate steppe of...

In xeric environments, water-use efficiency (WUE) is likely to be a target of natural selection. Higher WUE is expected to confer a fitness advantage in drought conditions, but this prediction has rarely been tested. To examine the relationships between WUE and fitness, two common garden experiments were conducted. Inbred lines of Impatiens capensis derived from wet and relatively dry sites wer...

High water use efficiency (WUE) can be achieved by coordination of biomass accumulation and water consumption. WUE is physiologically and genetically linked to carbon isotope discrimination (CID) in leaves of plants. A population of 148 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of sunflower derived from a cross between XRQ and PSC8 lines was studied to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling W...

Drought limits light harvesting, resulting in lower plant growth and reproduction. One trait important for plant drought response is water-use efficiency (WUE). We investigated (1) how the joint genetic architecture of WUE, reproductive characters, and vegetative traits changed across drought and well-watered conditions, (2) whether traits with distinct developmental bases (e.g. leaf gas exchan...