Evolution of plant physiology from the lamina perspective
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation is focused on the evolutionary paths of plants as reflected by their photosynthetic organs. The history of life on earth is also the history of primary producers, and leaves are the most abundant fossil where helpful information from which plant functional diversity can be derived. Photosynthetic carbon fixation involves gas exchange with the atmosphere and is accompanied by unavoidable water loss from the plant interior. Understanding evolutionary innovations and trends involved in the transpiration capacity of plants becomes a tool for understanding primary productivity. This work approaches diversity from a physiological perspective and, more specifically, focuses on physiological innovations that impact bottlenecks in the transpiration stream. The first chapter introduces the evolutionary history of vascular plants through time and tools for interpreting leaf physiology from morphology. The second chapter contributes to our understanding of the relatively fixed and low transpiration capacity among most vascular plants compared to flowering plants. It provides evidence of a conflict between the allocation of the lamina's vascular network (transporting water to the lamina) and of the gas exchange surfaces. This conflict arises from a widespread and recurrent tendency for the vascular bundles to occupy a large volume of the leaf interior and a large fraction of the leaf surface. This chapter proposes that lamina developmental innovations among flowering plants avoid this conflict by allowing multiple hierarchies in the venation network, which enable ultimate bundles transporting water to evaporation sites without interfering with gas exchange. The third chapter gathers considerable evidence showing that large laminas became common only recently with the dominance of flowering plants. This work addresses the role of lamina dimensions in transpiration rates and energetic budgets and shows how the interplay of both is complex. This chapter challenges previously established concepts related to environmental feedback limiting lamina dimensions and proposes developmental and structural innovations as a likely explanation of the evolution of large lamina. Chapter four explores the evolution of physiological diversity directly by collecting functional traits for laminas spanning the evolutionary history of plants. This chapter provides evidence for a relatively fixed evolutionary breadth for ferns, shared with early seed plants radiating during the wetland expansion of the Carboniferous. Physiological innovations occur among plants with seeds and coincide with the global disappearance of wetlands and the increase of well-drained, seasonal environments towards the Mesozoic. The seed plant's physiological expansion is interpreted as allowing occupation of exposed environments, but ultimately limiting maximum productivity.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Baresch, Andrés |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Boyce, C. Kevin |
| Thesis advisor | Boyce, C. Kevin |
| Thesis advisor | Leslie, Andrew (Andrew B.) |
| Thesis advisor | Payne, Jonathan L |
| Degree committee member | Leslie, Andrew (Andrew B.) |
| Degree committee member | Payne, Jonathan L |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Andrés Baresch Aristizábal. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/gt046px8202 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Andres Baresch
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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