CAREER: Linking canopy structure and function in plant water-use economy

Rapidly changing climatic and socioeconomic conditions have necessitated a need for improved quantitative description and prediction of the associated response of plant system productivity. Current and predicted climatic conditions are characterized by increased magnitude or variability in heat and drought, which has the potential to threaten the productivity of natural and agricultural plant systems.

Sustaining the steadily growing human population will require corresponding increases in the efficiency of agricultural systems. The overarching aim of this work is to better understand how light availability, plant architecture, and leaf surface temperature interact to determine the efficiency of plant systems with respect to input resources. In order to examine such processes, novel experimental and analytical techniques will be used that allow for measurement and prediction of interactions between plant structure and function in three dimensions.

Educational activities associated with this project will produce a novel model/data visualization tool that will help to educate the next generation of plant scientists through outreach activities. New three-dimensional plant modeling software will be developed that will allow students to explore scientific questions related to plant-environment interactions in an immersive virtual environment.

This project will engage and mentor students at the high-school, undergraduate, and graduate levels, and provide interdisciplinary training that spans the biological, engineering, and computer sciences.

The water-related costs associated with CO2 uptake for photosynthesis are managed by plants in the short-term by varying the aperture of stomatal pores in response to environmental conditions to avoid excessive water loss and can also be augmented in the long-term by varying canopy architecture (e.g., leaf angle and area distributions) and underlying physiological function. A complete mechanistic theoretical basis that describes how plants simultaneously control stomatal aperture, canopy architecture, and physiological parameters in order to maximize carbon gain with respect to water loss has remained elusive, and represents a significant knowledge gap that has inhibited efforts to quantitatively describe plant responses to drought stress, and ultimately to predict plant responses to future climate scenarios characterized by elevated temperatures and precipitation variability.

This project proposes to advance research and education in plant water-use efficiency by fusing novel experimental, modeling, and visualization techniques to better understand the roles of simultaneous variation in light, temperature, and canopy architecture in optimization of gas exchange by plants across spatial and temporal scales. Experimental research will span leaf to whole-plant scales, and from a controlled environment to natural landscapes that traverse a gradient in temperature and precipitation.

High-fidelity functional-structural plant models will be used to facilitate theoretical analyses that complement experimental data.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.