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Getting to the Root of the Matter
August 20, 2008Like most things that exist underground, plant roots are out-of-sight and easily forgotten, but while flowers, leaves, and other aboveground plant parts are more familiar, plant roots are equally deserving of our appreciation. Beneath every towering tree, tasty crop, and dazzling ornamental lies a root system that makes it all possible. Roots provide anchor and support for plants, extract water and nutrients from soil, and reduce soil erosion. Roots also play an important role in soil carbon cycling and the global carbon balance.
A number of current issues related to water availability and climate change are giving impetus to new research aimed at roots and their functioning. The research is producing new experimental methods, data acquisition, and theoretical understanding. Recently, scientists from the U.S. Salinity Laboratory, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, assembled a collection of new research in the form of 13 papers that are published as a special section of the August issue of Vadose Zone Journal. Some of the research in these papers was presented at the 2006 Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting (Indianapolis, IN) and the 2007 European Geosciences Union General Assembly (Vienna, Austria).
Several of the collected papers take aim at the "out-of-sight" problem, using advanced imaging technologies to observe roots and their functioning at the scale of a single plant or root. Imaging technologies such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are more commonly used in medical and industrial applications, and their use in root research requires new measurement procedures and protocols. In the collected works, researchers were able to successfully obtain images of growing root systems and were able to observe water uptake patterns.
Another current research topic concerns the role of roots in carbon cycling and the implications for global climate change. New research reported in the special section demonstrates that root and carbon dynamics are highly complex, requiring nearly continuous monitoring to understand the biophysical factors that regulate belowground carbon dynamics.
A few of the collected papers are concerned with the development of mathematical models that simulate various root processes, including the uptake of water. These types of models form the basis for various computer simulation tools that are currently used in agricultural and environmental management. For example, one paper in the collection uses such a model to investigate the role of root uptake in regulating the movement of plutonium in soils at the Savannah River nuclear materials processing site.
Roots can also be studied at the level of plant species or biomes. Included in the new collection is research reporting on differences in root zone hydrologic behavior for various species in chaparral ecosystems. The observed differences are minor, but there are detectible differences in how different vegetation affects the water budget. Other research looks at factors affecting rooting depth for different soils, climates, and vegetation. The authors conclude that many ecological factors favor shallow roots over deep roots, and hypothesize that root distributions for particular plant communities tend to be only as deep as necessary to meet specific water requirements.
Todd Skaggs and Peter Shouse, both of the U.S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, CA, served as guest editors of the special section, Roots and Root Function, and introduce the papers in a preface to the special section.
Soil Science Society of America
Another current research topic concerns the role of roots in carbon cycling and the implications for global climate change. New research reported in the special section demonstrates that root and carbon dynamics are highly complex, requiring nearly continuous monitoring to understand the biophysical factors that regulate belowground carbon dynamics.
A few of the collected papers are concerned with the development of mathematical models that simulate various root processes, including the uptake of water. These types of models form the basis for various computer simulation tools that are currently used in agricultural and environmental management. For example, one paper in the collection uses such a model to investigate the role of root uptake in regulating the movement of plutonium in soils at the Savannah River nuclear materials processing site.
Roots can also be studied at the level of plant species or biomes. Included in the new collection is research reporting on differences in root zone hydrologic behavior for various species in chaparral ecosystems. The observed differences are minor, but there are detectible differences in how different vegetation affects the water budget. Other research looks at factors affecting rooting depth for different soils, climates, and vegetation. The authors conclude that many ecological factors favor shallow roots over deep roots, and hypothesize that root distributions for particular plant communities tend to be only as deep as necessary to meet specific water requirements.
Todd Skaggs and Peter Shouse, both of the U.S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, CA, served as guest editors of the special section, Roots and Root Function, and introduce the papers in a preface to the special section.
Soil Science Society of America
Plant Roots Current Events and Plant Roots News RSSU.S. Air Force Technology Helps Scientists Understand Plant Root Function
The McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center (MNRC) in Sacramento, CA was developed by the U.S. Air Force to detect corrosion and defects in aircraft structure using an imaging technique called neutron radiography. This technique is currently helping soil scientists understand the function of plant roots and their uptake of water and nutrients.
ISU researchers help map first plant-parasitic nematode genome sequence
There are numerous plant-parasitic nematodes in the world, but only a handful are responsible for the largest part of an estimated $157 billion in agricultural damage globally every year. Nematodes are small worms that burrow into plant roots and feed off living cells.
The emerging story of plant roots
An international group of European and US scientists led by the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology at The University of Nottingham have uncovered a fascinating new insight into the unseen side of plant biology - the root.
Where Is Your Soil Water? Crop Yield Has the Answer
Crop yield is highly dependent on soil plant-available water, the portion of soil water that can be taken up by plant roots.
Researchers identify proteins making up mechanosensitive ion channels
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are the first to identify two proteins responsible for mechanosensitive ion channel activities in plant roots. Scientists have long known that plant cells respond to physical forces. Until now, however, the proteins controlling the ion channel response remained a mystery.
A common genetic mechanism discovered in nitrogen-fixing plants
Some soil microorganisms are capable of forging associations with plant roots in the form of symbioses. Certain of these relationships play a highly important ecological and agronomic role.
Mechanisms of plant-fungi symbiosis characterized by DOE Joint Genome Institute
Plants gained their ancestral toehold on dry land with considerable help from their fungal friends. Now, millennia later, that partnership is being exploited as a strategy to bolster biomass production for next generation biofuels.
Elevated Carbon Dioxide Changes Soil Microbe Mix Below Plants
A detailed analysis of soil samples taken from a forest ecosystem with artificially elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reveals distinct changes in the mix of microorganisms living in the soil below trembling aspen.
Why Do Autumn Leaves Bother to Turn Red?
Soils may dictate the array of fall colors as much as the trees rooted in them, according to a forest survey out of North Carolina.
Hungry microbes share out the carbon in the roots of plants
Sugars made by plants are rapidly used by microbes living in their roots, according to new research at the University of York, creating a short cut in the carbon cycle that is vital to life on earth.
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