How Does Phloem Physiology Affect Plant Ecology?
Plant, Cell & Environment (2016) 39,709–725 doi: 10.1111/pce.12602 Review Allocation, stress tolerance and carbon transport in plants: how does phloem physiology affect plant ecology? Jessica A. Savage1, Michael J. Clearwater2, Dustin F. Haines3, Tamir Klein4, Maurizio Mencuccini5,6, Sanna Sevanto7, Robert Turgeon8 &CankuiZhang9 1Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1300 Centre Street, Boston, MA 02131, USA, 2School of Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand, 3Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA, 4Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schoenbeinstrasse 6, 4056 Basel, Switzerland, 5School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Crew Building, West Mains RoadEH9 3JN Edinburgh, UK, 6ICREA at CREAF, Campus de UAB, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona 08023, Spain, 7Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA, 8Plant Biology Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA and 9Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA ABSTRACT potentially influencing everything from growth and allocation to defense and reproduction (Fig. 1). The phloem’srolein Despite the crucial role of carbon transport in whole plant shaping many ecological processes has intrigued scientists for physiology and its impact on plant–environment interactions decades, but proving a direct connection between phloem and ecosystem function, relatively little research has tried to ex- physiology and plant ecology remains challenging. amine how phloem physiology impacts plant ecology. In this re- Carbon transport occurs in a series of stacked cells, sieve el- view, we highlight several areas of active research where ements, which in angiosperms form long continuous conduits inquiry into phloem physiology has increased our understand- called sieve tubes (for details on cell ultrastructure, see Froelich ing of whole plant function and ecological processes.
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