Publications by authors named "Zheng-Fei Nie"

Resprouting plants are distributed in many vegetation communities worldwide. With increasing resprout age post-severe-disturbance, new stems grow rapidly at their early age, and decrease in their growth with gradually decreasing water status thereafter. However, there is little knowledge about how stem hydraulic strategies and anatomical traits vary post-disturbance.

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It has been suggested that a trade-off between hydraulic efficiency and safety is related to drought adaptation across species. However, whether leaf hydraulic efficiency is sacrificed for safety during woody resprout regrowth after crown removal is not well understood. We measured leaf water potential (ψ ) at predawn (ψ ) and midday (ψ ), leaf maximum hydraulic conductance (K ), ψ at induction 50% loss of K (K P ), leaf area-specific whole-plant hydraulic conductance (LSC), leaf vein structure and turgor loss point (π ) in 1- to 13-year-old resprouts of the aridland shrub (Caragana korshinskii).

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Plants control water-use efficiency (WUE) by regulating water loss and CO diffusion through stomata. Variation in stomatal control has been reported among lineages of vascular plants, thus giving rise to the possibility that different lineages may show distinct WUE dynamics in response to water stress. Here, we compared the response of gas exchange to decreasing leaf water potential among four ferns and nine seed plant species exposed to a gradually intensifying water deficit.

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In recent years, research on spermine (Spm) has turned up a lot of new information about this essential polyamine, especially as it is able to counteract damage from abiotic stresses. Spm has been shown to protect plants from a variety of environmental insults, but whether it can prevent the adverse effects of drought has not yet been reported. Drought stress increases endogenous Spm in plants and exogenous application of Spm improves the plants' ability to tolerate drought stress.

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Investigating plant morphological traits can provide insights into plant drought tolerance. To date, many papers have focused on plant hydraulic responses to drought during dehydration, but atmospheric water absorption by trichomes to mitigate drought stress by influencing leaf hydraulics in plant species that inhabit arid environments has been largely ignored. The experiment in this study was designed to assess how dew absorbed by leaf trichomes helps Caragana korshinskii withstand drought.

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Drought is a cyclical phenomenon in natural environments. During dehydration, stomatal closure is mainly regulated by abscisic acid (ABA) dynamics that limit transpiration in seed plants, but following rehydration, the mechanism of gas exchange recovery is still not clear. In this study, leaf water potential (ψ ), stomatal conductance (g ), leaf hydraulic conductance (K ), foliar ABA level, ethylene emission rate in response to dehydration and rehydration were investigated in four Caragana species with isohydric (Caragana spinosa and C.

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Clarifying the coordination of leaf hydraulic traits with gas exchange across closely-related species adapted to varying rainfall can provide insights into plant habitat distribution and drought adaptation. The leaf hydraulic conductance (K ), stomatal conductance (g ), net assimilation (A), vein embolism and abscisic acid (ABA) concentration during dehydration were quantified, as well as pressure-volume curve traits and vein anatomy in 10 Caragana species adapted to a range of mean annual precipitation (MAP) conditions and growing in a common garden. We found a positive correlation between Ψ at 50% loss of K (K P ) and maximum K (K ) across species.

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