The resistance and resilience of European beech seedlings to drought stress during the period of leaf development

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43410%2F20%3A43918028" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43410/20:43918028 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpaa066" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpaa066</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpaa066" target="_blank" >10.1093/treephys/tpaa066</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The resistance and resilience of European beech seedlings to drought stress during the period of leaf development

Original language description

Spring drought is becoming a frequently occurring stress factor in temperate forests. However, the understanding of tree resistance and resilience to the spring drought remains insufficient. In this study, European beech seedlings at the early stage of leaf development were moderately and severely drought stressed for one month and then subjected to a two-week recovery period after rewatering. The study aimed to disentangle the complex relationships between leaf gas exchange, vascular anatomy, tree morphology, and patterns of biomass allocation. Stomatal conductance decreased by 80% and 85% upon moderate and severe drought stress, respectively, which brought along a decline in net photosynthesis. However, drought did not affect the indices of slow chlorophyll fluorescence, indicating no permanent damage to the light part of the photosynthetic apparatus. Stem hydraulic conductivity decreased by more than 92% to only a few percent at both drought levels. Consequently, the cambial activity of stressed seedlings declined, which led to lower stem biomass, reduced tree ring width, and a lower number of vessels in the current tree ring, these also with smaller dimensions. In contrast, the petiole structure was not affected, but at the cost of reduced leaf biomass. Root biomass was reduced only by severe drought. After rewatering, the recovery of gas exchange and re-growth of the current tree-ring were observed, all delayed by several days and by lower magnitudes in severely stressed seedlings. The reduced stem hydraulic conductivity inhibited the effective recovery of gas exchange, but xylem function started to recover by means of the re-growth as well asand refilling of embolised vessels. Despite the damage to conductive xylem, no mortality occurred and all trees recovered their function after rewatering. These results suggest the low resistance but high resilience of European beech to spring drought. Nevertheless, beech resilience could be weakened if the period between drought events is short as the full recovery of severely stressed seedlings tookwas longer time than 14 days. for severely stress seedlings.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

40102 - Forestry

Project

<a href="/en/project/LTT17033" target="_blank" >LTT17033: Involvement of Czech scientists in the FunDivEUROPE pan-European research platform</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Tree Physiology

ISSN

0829-318X

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

40

Issue of the periodical within the volume

9

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

1147-1164

UT code for WoS article

000591569300002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85090037169