Effects of drought stress on hydraulic architecture of seedlings from five populations of green ash
Two-year-old seedlings of green ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanica Marsh., representing five native populations from an east to west precipitation gradient, were grown under contrasting moisture regimes in the greenhouse. At midsummer and the end of the growing season, leaf areas, earlywood and latewood transverse areas, and several structural attributes of the xylem hydraulic system were compared between well-watered and drought-stressed seedlings. Xylem hydraulic capacity was essentially fixed by midsummer. Drought significantly reduced both earlywood and latewood production but had no significant effect on potentially functional xylem area (Apf) or flow velocity (v). The principal effect of drought on hydraulic architecture was a significant reduction in leaf area and therefore the ratios of potentially functional xylem area to unit leaf area (Apf to A1) and leaf specific conductivity (LSC). In contrast, populations differed significantly in all measured parameters, especially under drought conditions. Path analysis of LSC and its component variables revealed that treatment differences in LSC arose primarily through differences in A1; contributions from variation in Apf and especially flow velocity were relatively minor. In contrast, population variation in LSC could be attributed in roughly equal measure to variation in Apf and A1, and to a lesser degree to variation in flow velocity. The covariance between A1 and Apf was important for both treatment and population variation in LSC, suggesting a fundamental physiological linkage between these two aspects of plant hydraulic architecture. Among populations, high flow velocity tended to be associated with low Apf to A1 values, thereby minimizing population differences in the composite character LSC. Populations differed significantly in all attributes studied, in one environment or another, but those at either end of the precipitation gradient did not differ in several presumably important structural attributes. Although plant hydraulic architecture is genetically controlled and variable in green ash seedlings, its adaptive significance cannot be considered in isolation from other factors that control plant response to water stress. Key words: leaf specific conductivity, ecotypic variation, xylem structure.