Plant water uptake strategies to cope with stochastic rainfall

Abstract

We develop and compare two hydraulically-based schemes of the xylem structure of an individual plant. The dynamics of water uptake are analyzed under random conditions through the modeling of rainfall as a stochastic process. The two hydraulic schemes differ in the modeling of the root ability to cooperate, i.e., the capacity of roots to increase the water uptake from the wetter soil layers when other parts of the soil are dry (compensation effect) and to transfer water from moister into drier soil layers (water redistribution effect). Both compensation and water redistribution are direct consequences of the hydraulic structure of the root system, which is modeled here considering two contrasting cases corresponding to non-interacting uptake paths from different soil layers, and converging uptake paths. Only the latter hydraulic architecture allows for compensation and water redistribution. Another important difference between the hydraulic schemes is the stomatal response to soil dryness. When the soil water is unevenly distributed in the soil layers, the differences in the hydraulic schemes emerge. In semi-arid climates, plants characterized by a cooperative root system are shown to be less prone to water stress. In contrast, plants with non-interacting roots result to be better fit to humid climates, where the probability of droughts is small.