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UCLA research makes possible rapid assessment of plant drought tolerance
Date:7/31/2012

e traits are typically measured by generating a relationship called the pressure-volume (p-v) curve. To produce a p-v curve, a leaf is dried slowly. Leaf water pressure and water mass are repeatedly measured, requiring nearly constant attention from a researcher for up to two days for a single species.

"After we identified these traits for measuring drought tolerance, our next challenge was to make it possible to measure them quickly for many diverse species," Bartlett said.

To hasten the process, the UCLA team and XTBG froze small discs of leaf tissue in liquid nitrogen to break the cell walls and mix the cell sap. The saltiness of the cell sap could then be measured with an instrument called an osmometer, which is typically used to measure osmotic potential in urine or blood. (Earlier studies compared osmotic potential measured by p-v curves with those from the osmometer, but the method had not been refined enough to produce reliable results for turgor loss point.)

The UCLA-XTBG team refined the method so that it can be applied in 10 minutes. They made measurements for 30 species from very different ecosystems, including tropical forest in China and the California chaparral. From this comparison, they developed the first equations for predicting p-v curve turgor loss point and cell saltiness from osmometer measurements.

"This approach has great potential for determining drought tolerance for thousands of species that are threatened by climate change, and to answer important questions about the relationship between drought tolerance and plant evolution and ecology that were just not feasible before," Sack said.


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Contact: Stuart Wolpert
swolpert@support.ucla.edu
310-206-0511
University of California - Los Angeles
Source:Eurekalert

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