JXB Advance Access originally published online on January 24, 2005
Journal of Experimental Botany 2005 56(413):857-864; doi:10.1093/jxb/eri072
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RESEARCH PAPER |
Lateral gas diffusion inside leaves
1Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, ICG III: Phytosphere, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
2FB 9Botanik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, D-45117 Essen, Germany
* To whom correspondence should be addressed in Jülich. Fax: +49 2461 61 2492. E-mail: s.jahnke{at}fz-juelich.de
Diffusion of CO2 inside leaves is generally regarded to be from the substomatal cavities to the assimilating tissues, i.e. in the vertical direction of the leaf blades. However, lateral gas diffusion within intercellular air spaces may be much more effective than hitherto considered. In a previous work it was demonstrated that, when clamp-on leaf chambers are used, leaf internal CO2 leakage beyond the leaf chamber gaskets may seriously affect gas exchange measurement. This effect has been used in the present paper to quantify gas conductance (gleaf,l, mmol m2 s1) in the lateral directions within leaves and significant differences between homo- and heterobaric leaves were observed. For the homobaric leaves, lateral gas conductance measured over a distance of 6 or 8 mm (the widths of the chamber gaskets) was 220% of vertical conductance taken from published data measured over much smaller distances of 108280 µm (the thickness of the leaves). The specific internal gas diffusion properties of the leaves have been characterized by gas conductivities (
µmol m1 s1). Gas conductivities in the lateral directions of heterobaric leaves were found to be small but not zero. In homobaric leaves, they were between 67 and 209 µmol m1 s1 and thus even larger than those in the vertical direction of the leaf blades (between 15 and 78 µmol m1 s1). The potential implications for experimentalists performing gas exchange measurements are discussed.
Key words: Gas conductance, gas conductivity, gas exchange measurement, heterobaric leaf anatomy, homobaric leaf anatomy, respiration
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