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Doctor Alice Gauthey

Candidature

Graduated PhD 2022

Thesis title

Non-Invasive Imaging of Drought-Induced Cavitation in Plants

Research Project

Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and recurrence of extreme climate events such as drought. Drought-induced mortality can have important impacts on species distributions and forest community composition, causing both ecological and economic issues. Therefore, it is essential to be able to understand drought susceptibility via plant hydraulics so we can predict the physiological thresholds that initiate tree mortality.

This thesis will investigate how different plant species respond to drought and attempt to answer some key physiological questions linked to recovery after a severe water loss. Specifically, this thesis aims to address the following questions:

  1. How to reliably measure plant’s vulnerability to drought? The traditional methods to quantify the degree of impact (i.e. embolism) require cutting plant material (stems, roots, or leaves), which causes artefacts by perturbing the vascular system before measurement. However, in the last two decades, advances in imaging technologies have allowed for the development of new techniques. This chapter is focused on comparing these destructive (bench dehydration and flow-centrifuge) and non-invasive methods (micro computed-tomography and optical vulnerability technique).
  2. Is embolism refilling a common strategy across plants species to recover after an intense drought event? In order to transport water from the roots to the shoots, the vascular system (i.e. xylem) is under negative pressure which can be compared to a tension. As the water stress becomes more important, the tension increase and bubbles of gas are formed inside the xylem. This chapter’s goal is to understand if refilling of gas-filled vessels is possible under decreased negative pressure.
  3. Application of imaging techniques to understand a massive dieback event in the mangrove forests of Queensland. During the summer 2015-16, a massive dieback affected mangroves community in the North of Australia. Along the whole gulf of Carpentaria, more than 1000km of shoreline suffered from this severe mortality. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate physiological trait of mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria and in the coast of Queensland in order to measure their capacity to recover, the potential or adaptive plasticity and the physiological threshold of survival.
Publications

Losso A, Gauthey A, Choat B, Mayr S, (2023) 'Seasonal variation in the xylem sap composition of six Australian trees and shrubs', AoB PLANTS, vol.15, no.5, Art. no.plad064

Gauthey A, Backes D, Balland J, Alam I, Maher DT, Cernusak LA, Duke NC, Medlyn BE, Tissue DT, Choat B, (2022) 'The Role of Hydraulic Failure in a Massive Mangrove Die-Off Event', Frontiers in Plant Science, vol.13, Article no.822136

Gauthey A, Peters JMR, Lòpez R, Carins-Murpjhy MR, Rodriguez-Dominguez CM, Tissue DT, Medlyn BE, Brodribb TJ, Choat B, (2022) 'Mechanisms of xylem hydraulic recovery after drought in Eucalyptus saligna', Plant Cell and Environment, vol.45, no.4, pp 1216 - 1228

Nolan RH, Gauthey A, Losso A, Medlyn BE, Smith R, Chhajed SS, Fuller K, Song M, Li X, Beaumont LJ, Boer MM, Wright IJ, Choat B, (2021) 'Hydraulic failure and tree size linked with canopy die-back in eucalypt forest during extreme drought', New Phytologist, vol.230, no.4, pp 1354-1365

Peters JMR, Gauthey A, Lopez R, Carins-Murphy MR, Brodribb TJ, Choat B, (2021) 'Non-invasive imaging reveals convergence in root and stem vulnerability to cavitation across five tree species', Journal of Experimental Botany, vol.71, no.20, pp 6623-6637

Gauthey A, Peters JMR, Carins‐Murphy MR, Rodriguez‐Dominguez CM, Li X, Delzon S, King A, Lòpez R, Medlyn BE, Tissue DT, Brodribb TJ, Choat B, (2020) 'Visual and hydraulic techniques produce similar estimates of cavitation resistance in woody species', New Phytologist, vol.228, no.3, pp 884-897

Peters JMR, Gauthey A, Lopez R, Carins-Murphy MR, Brodribb TJ, Choat B, (2020) 'Non-invasive imaging reveals convergence in root and stem vulnerability to cavitation across five tree species', Journal of Experimental Botany, vol.71, no.20, pp 6623-6637

Supervisors

A/Professor Brendan Choat, Professor Belinda Medlyn, Professor David Tissue