ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Plant height and hydraulic vulnerability to drought and cold.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed.
- Global patterns of CThe New phytologist · 2026Article
- Da Vinci's mischief: xylem conduits in the stems of woody plants do not furcate.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Reduced snow cover at the alpine treeline: resistance and recovery of saplings.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Divergent mechanisms governing aboveground biomass in desert plants across a drought gradient.iScience · 2026Article
- Higher optimal temperature for vegetation transpiration than for photosynthesis.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Functional traits explain growth response to successive hotter droughts across a wide set of common and future tree species in Europe.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2026Article
- Leaf Length Predicts Twig Xylem Vessel Diameter Across Angiosperms.Plant, cell & environment · 2026Article
- Small understory trees increase growth following sustained drought in the Amazon.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Needle length in pines as a key trait regulating hydraulic resistance.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Are differences in xylem vessel traits and their geographical variation among liana species related to the distribution patterns of climbing mechanisms in a temperate zone?Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Ontogenetic shifts in wood anatomy and leaf traits in tropical dry forests.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Global dependency of canopy height on vapour pressure deficit and its projections under climate change.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Vertical Stratification Drives Divergent Spatial Trade-Offs Among Xylem Cell Types in Angiosperm Trees of a Mountain Forest in Eastern China.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Advances in Potassium Silicate-Induced Drought Tolerance in Tropical Tree Seedlings: Effects on Morphological Traits, Physiological Responses, and Biochemical Regulation.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Xylem vessel anatomy and hydraulic function scale in concert along the tip-to-base axis of an angiosperm tree.AoB PLANTS · 2025Article
- Physical constraints and environmental factors shape phloem anatomical traits in woody angiosperm species.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Article
- Hydraulic path length as a determinant of xylem conduit size at the stem base, regardless of cambial age.Tree physiology · 2025Article
- Long-term recovery of canopy 3D structural diversity following wildfires in the world's largest temperate woodland.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Tip-to-base conduit widening maintains hydraulic efficiency in aerial fern organs.The New phytologist · 2025Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding how plants survive drought and cold is increasingly important as plants worldwide experience dieback with drought in moist places and grow taller with warming in cold ones. Crucial in plant climate adaptation are the diameters of water-transporting conduits. Sampling 537 species across climate zones dominated by angiosperms, we find that plant size is unambiguously the main driver of conduit diameter variation. And because taller plants have wider conduits, and wider conduits within species are more vulnerable to conduction-blocking embolisms, taller conspecifics should be more vulnerable than shorter ones, a prediction we confirm with a plantation experiment. As a result, maximum plant size should be short under drought and cold, which cause embolism, or increase if these pressures relax. That conduit diameter and embolism vulnerability are inseparably related to plant size helps explain why factors that interact with conduit diameter, such as drought or warming, are altering plant heights worldwide.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.