Plants use water in the pores of rock fragments during drought
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Plants use water in the pores of rock fragments during drought Nathalie Korboulewsky & Marion Tétégan & Anatja Samouelian & Isabelle Cousin
Received: 30 September 2019 / Accepted: 6 January 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Background and aims Soils are composed of both fine and coarse materials. Coarse material (> 2 mm) is considered to be inert and is usually discarded in models of plant water balance, even though it affects soil
Responsible Editor: Rafael S. Oliveira. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04425-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. N. Korboulewsky : M. Tétégan : I. Cousin INRAE, UR SOLS, F-45075 Orléans, France N. Korboulewsky (*) INRAE, UR EFNO, Domaine des Barres, F-45290 Nogent-sur-Vernisson, France e-mail: [email protected] N. Korboulewsky Aix-Marseille Université, IMBE, UMR CNRS 6116-IRD, F-13331 Marseille, France M. Tétégan Arvalis – Institut du Végétal, Domaine expérimental du Magneraud, 17700 Saint Pierre d’Amilly, France A. Samouelian LISAH, INRAE, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, University of Montpellier, F-34060 Montpellier, France
Present Address: M. Tétégan Campus de Shippagan, Université de Moncton, Shippagan, NB E8S 1P6, Canada
properties. No studies have yet attempted to assess whether rock fragments may act as a water reservoir for plants. Methods Cuttings of Populus euramericana were planted in 5-L pots containing reconstituted soil made up of fine earth (silty clay loam texture) and either limestone or inert (quartz) pebbles (rock fragments 2– 5 cm) at 0, 20, and 40% volume in a cross-factorial experiment. Two drought periods were applied and the growth, evapotranspiration, water stress status by stomatal conductance, and water content of the two soil phases (fine earth and pebbles) were monitored. Results First, pebbles can contain water, and ignoring this water induced and underestimations of the soil available water content by respectively 11% and 30% for the treatment with 20% and 40% limestone pebbles. Second, the plants grown on limestone pebbles were up to 70% less stressed than the plants grown on inert pebbles during drought. Third, stomatal conductance, a water stress indicator, was correlated with the water content of both the fine earth and the limestone pebbles. Conclusion These results demonstrate that limestone rock fragments can retain available water and act as a reservoir during drought periods. Keywords Stony soil . Rock fragments . Water absorption . Hydrological processes . Water stress . Stomatal conductivity . Drought Abbreviations AWC available water capacity ET evapotranspiration
Plant Soil
G WUE
stomatal conductivity water use efficiency
Introduction Stony soils, or skeletal soils, are defined as soils that contain more than 35% (or 40% in some authors) of rock fragments, that is particles larger than 2 mm, in volume (FAO 2006; IUSS Working Group WRB 2006; Soil Survey Staff 2010). In Western Europ
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