Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Approaches for Characterizing Plant Physiological Responses to Environmental Stress

Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/qj72pb26g

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • It is uncertain how predicted changes in climate will impact vegetation responses and plant species’ distributions because the physiological mechanisms underlying thresholds for damage are not well understood, and responses to stress vary by functional type and developmental stage. Thus, it is crucial to investigate physiological responses to heat and drought stress on multiple species, populations, and growth stages with diverse approaches. In this dissertation, I employ a suite of physiological and modeling methods to inform our knowledge of plant physiological responses to environmental stress in Coffea arabica saplings, Pseudotsuga mensizeii (PSME) and Pinus ponderosa (PIPO) seedlings, and old-growth PIPO. In Chapter 2, I evaluate the effect of leaf age and methodology on the thermotolerance or heat tolerance of C. arabica leaf discs using chlorophyll fluorescence and electrolyte leakage methods. I found that mature leaves were more heat tolerant than expanding leaves, longer time between temperature exposure and measurement yielded more accurate thermotolerance assessments, and photochemistry was more heat-sensitive than cell membranes. To complement the second chapter investigating heat stress responses on detached leaf discs, Chapter 3 examines the effect of leaf age and heat stress duration (45 min or 90 min) on whole-plant physiological responses and capacity to recover in C. arabica by monitoring chlorophyll fluorescence (F[subscript V]/F[subscript M]), gas exchange, and foliar non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) dynamics in situ in response to a simulated heat wave (49°C) in a growth chamber. I found that the 90 min treatment resulted in greater photosynthetic damage and slower recovery than the 45 min treatment, expanding leaves recovered more slowly than in mature leaves, and both heat treatments inhibited flowering. A leaf energy balance model demonstrated that heat stress would be exacerbated by drought-induced stomatal closure. Heat treatment duration significantly impacted NSC dynamics that were closely related to reproduction and repair. Because seedling establishment governs species’ distributions, and because seedlings are particularly threatened by high temperatures at the soil surface, in Chapter 4 I examined the thermotolerance and heat stress responses of PIPO and PSME seedling populations from contrasting climates. Unexpectedly, I found that PSME was more heat tolerant the PIPO. I also monitored physiological recovery after exposure to a simulated heat wave (45°C) by measuring photosynthesis, F[subscript V]/F[subscript M], foliar NSC, and carbon stable isotope ratios (proxy for intrinsic water use efficiency, iWUE). Heat stress responses were consistent with phenotypic plasticity and reflected the conditions under which the plants were grown, while iWUE, a measure of potential drought resistance, was consistent with ecotypic differentiation and the climates from which the seedlings originated. To investigate responses to environmental stress on larger temporal and spatial scales without the challenges of making repeated physiological measurements on old-growth trees, in Chapter 5 I used long-term trajectories of tree-ring growth and carbon and oxygen isotopes of tree-ring cellulose (δ¹³Ccell, and δ¹⁸Ocell) to successfully predict the stand characteristics of two sets (upland, riparian) of old-growth PIPO using the Physiological Principles in Predicting Growth (3-PG) model, the δ¹³Ccell submodel, and a δ¹⁸Ocell submodel added by me. The expanded model helped to explain physiological drivers underlying the different tree-ring growth, δ¹³Ccell, and δ¹⁸Ocell trajectories measured at the upland and riparian sites. The combination of both δ¹⁸O and δ¹³Ccell submodels provided a useful and novel way to constrain 3-PG. This dissertation demonstrates an innovative strategy of applying diverse approaches to understand the physiological mechanisms behind vegetation responses to environmental stress.
License
Resource Type
Date Available
Date Issued
Degree Level
Degree Name
Degree Field
Degree Grantor
Commencement Year
Advisor
Committee Member
Academic Affiliation
Non-Academic Affiliation
Subject
Rights Statement
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details MariasDanielleE2017.pdf 2017-08-09 Public Download