Project description
Did nature engineer a water pump within plant roots?
We all know that water flows downhill, or down a gradient of 'potentials'. These reflect the fact that water is drawn by gravity, suction and salts located behind membranes. The laws of physics tell us that it is impossible for water to flow along uphill gradients without consuming external energy. So, each time this phenomenon was observed in plants, scientists searched for active water pumping mechanisms, and hit a snag. Then, a novel micro-hydrological simulator showed that, in theory, neighbouring cells containing different salt concentrations could play the role of water pump. The ERC-funded ThePlantWaterPump project aims to validate this new theory, changing how we think of water transport in plants, and our understanding of droughts impact under changing climates.
Objective
With global warming, climate zones are projected to shift poleward, and the frequency and intensity of droughts to increase, driving threats to crop production and ecosystems. Plant hydraulic traits play major roles in coping with such droughts, and process-based plant hydraulics (water flowing along decreasing pressure or total water potential gradients) has newly been implemented in land surface models.
An enigma reported for the past 35 years is the observation of water flowing along increasing water potential gradients across roots. By combining the most advanced modelling tool from the emerging field of plant micro-hydrology with pioneering cell solute mapping data, I found that the current paradigm of water flow across roots of all vascular plants is incomplete: it lacks the impact of solute concentration (and thus negative osmotic potential) gradients across living cells. This gradient acts as a water pump as it reduces water tension without loading solutes in plant vasculature (xylem). Importantly, water tension adjustments in roots may have large impacts in leaves due to the tension-cavitation feedback along stems.
With The Plant Water Pump I will combine for the first time cutting-edge osmotic mapping and micro-hydrological modelling approaches to (1) characterize water status and osmotic responses to water deficit in diverse crop and tree species, (2) revolutionize the current paradigm of plant water uptake, and (3) increase the accuracy of plant water status functions for land surface models. By creating a continuum between key cell-scale variables and plant-scale water fluxes, this project lays the foundations for future multidisciplinary research encompassing plant physiology and ecohydrology. Besides its groundbreaking contribution to the fundamental understanding of plant water relations, this effort embodies a much-needed step toward the accurate forecasting of land water fluxes and decision support under future climates.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences hydrology ecohydrology
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1348 LOUVAIN LA NEUVE
Belgium
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