Now is the time to identify the conditions that cause plants to die.
Now is the time to identify the conditions that cause plants to die. Doing so will allow us to better protect plants by choosing conservation targets more strategically, UC Riverside botanists argue in a new paper.
Published in the Oxford Academic journal Conservation Physiology, the paper demonstrates how scientists can learn the limits past which plants’ vital functions shut down, and makes the case that not doing so is a mistake in this era of increasing drought and wildfires.
“We can measure the amount of water loss plants can tolerate before they start to wilt, and we can learn the temperature at which photosynthesis stops for different kinds of plants,” said Louis Santiago, UCR botany professor and corresponding author of the paper.
Read more at: University of California - Riverside
Yreka phlox, imperiled California flora. (Photo Credit: Serena Doose/USFWS)
