Exploring Hydraulic Trade-offs in Plant Adaptation to Diverse Environmental Conditions

Plant hydraulic functioning is a core determinant of how terrestrial vegetation responds to climate change from a functional ecology perspective. Xylem-based water transport underpins carbon uptake, transpiration, and growth, yet is vulnerable to hydraulic failure, particularly under drought and heat extremes. Although many studies have quantified individual hydraulic and leaf traits, we still lack an integrated understanding of how plants balance water transport efficiency, hydraulic safety, and growth across environmental gradients. This Research Topic focuses on the hydraulic processes and trade-offs that underpin plant responses to environmental variation, with emphasis on water-use strategies and their ecological consequences. We are broadly interested in how different aspects of plant form and function, above- and belowground, interact to shape drought responses and growth, and how these integrated strategies influence patterns of diversity, community organization, and ecosystem processes across contrasting environments. This Research Topic seeks to advance a predictive, trait-based framework for plant hydraulic function and water-use strategies under global change. We particularly welcome contributions that integrate functional traits with demographic data, community composition, or ecosystem fluxes, and that make use of long-term observations, manipulative experiments, or modeling approaches.We invite Original Research, Methods, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, and Perspectives including, but not limited to:o Adjustments of hydraulic traits and water-use strategies along drought and aridity gradients.o Roles of belowground water acquisition and redistribution in mediating plant interactions.o Trade-offs between water transport efficiency and hydraulic safety, and their consequences for species distributions, coexistence, and ecosystem functioning.o Coordination of hydraulic traits with carbon allocation, growth, and reproduction, including links to resilience and demographic performance under water limitation. Topic editors: Jianbo Liu, Jian Wang, Weichang Gong, Cleberton Correia Santos Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77085/exploring-hydraulic-trade-offs-in-plant-adaptation-to-diverse-environmental-conditions