The contribution of vascular and extra-vascular water pathways to drought-induced decline of leaf hydraulic conductance

Drought stress can impair leaf hydraulic conductance (K-leaf), but the relative contribution of changes in the efficiency of the vein xylem water pathway and in the mesophyll route outside the xylem in driving the decline of K-leaf is still debated. We report direct measurements of dehydration-induced changes in the hydraulic resistance (R= 1/K) of whole leaf (R-leaf), as well as of the leaf xylem (R-x) and extra-vascular pathways (R-ox) in four Angiosperm species. Rleaf, R-x, and R-ox were measured using the vacuum chamber method (VCM). Rleaf values during progressive leaf dehydration were also validated with measurements performed using the rehydration kinetic method (RKM). We analysed correlations between changes in R-x or R-ox and Rleaf, as well as between morpho-anatomical traits (including dehydrationinduced leaf shrinkage), vulnerability to embolism, and leaf water relation parameters. Measurements revealed that the relative contribution of vascular and extra-vascular hydraulic properties in driving K-leaf decline during dehydration is species-specific. Whilst in two study species the progressive impairment of both vascular and extra-vascular pathways contributed to leaf hydraulic vulnerability, in the other two species the vascular pathway remained substantially unaltered during leaf dehydration, and K-leaf decline was apparently caused only by changes in the hydraulic properties of the extra-vascular compartment.