What is it about?
Drought-induced mortality in forests worldwide is likely due to air-bubbles entering the vascular system of trees. To better understand of how plants evolve to cope with drought, we studied the most drought-resistant trees of the world, Callitris. We show that increasing aridity in Australia over the last 30 million years has remarkably shaped their vascular system, driving their diversification into dry environments.
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Why is it important?
We show huge vascular trait variation in closely related species, distibuted along a large aridity gradient, from wet tropical forests in New Caledonia to the edge of Australias deserts. In particular, we provide the first evidence of large intra-generic variation in embolism resistance, which allowed this group of conifers to thrive during the aridification of Australia.
Perspectives
This fascinating group of conifers offers a unique opportunity to examine the role of climate in driving the evolution of physiological traits. Combined with a fresh perspective on this genus' phylogeny, extensive sampling and measurements of multiple vascular traits enabled us to show that i) record embolism evolved several times in this genus, ii) with no negative impact on water transport efficiency, and iii) was remarkably correlated to species climate. Finally, we show that the evolution of these traits enabled this group to diversify during periods of climatic upheaval, in contrast to many other gymnsperms.
Dr Maximilian Larter
University of Colorado Boulder
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Aridity drove the evolution of extreme embolism resistance and the radiation of conifer genusCallitris, New Phytologist, April 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/nph.14545.
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