Uniform regulation of stomatal closure across temperate tree species to sustain nocturnal turgor and growth
Peters, Richard L., Arend, Matthias, Zahnd, Cedric, Hoch, Günter, Arndt, Stefan K., Cernusak, Lucas A., Poyatos, Rafael, Zhorzel, Tobias, and Kahmen, Ansgar (2025) Uniform regulation of stomatal closure across temperate tree species to sustain nocturnal turgor and growth. Nature Plants, 11 (4). 2188. pp. 725-730.
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Abstract
Water loss and carbon gain are balanced by stomatal control, a trade-off that has allowed trees to survive and thrive under fluctuating environmental conditions. During periods of lower water availability, stomatal closure prevents excess water loss. Various strategies of stomatal control have been found among tree species, but the trigger for this behaviour remains elusive. We found a uniform pre-dawn water potential threshold (−1.2 MPa) for stomatal closure across species, which coincided with stem-growth cessation. Meanwhile, midday water potentials at stomatal closure were more variable across species and stomatal control did not follow species-specific thresholds of hydraulic failure, a commonly adopted theory in plant biology, and often used in predictive water-use modelling. This indicates that nocturnal rehydration, rather than daytime hydraulic safety is an optimization priority for stomatal closure in trees. We suggest that these processes are critical for forecasting the global carbon cycle dynamics.
| Item ID: | 88194 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2055-0278 |
| Copyright Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Mar 2026 23:42 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3108 Plant biology > 310803 Plant cell and molecular biology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100% |
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