Unraveling Multiscale Embolism Dynamics in Plant Leaves through Biomimetic Models

forthcoming

Embolism, the formation of air bubbles in a plant’s vascular system responsible for water transport (the xylem), disrupts the flow of water and nutrients, leading to hydraulic failure. With the increasing frequency of droughts due to climate change, embolism has become a leading factor in the decline of forests worldwide, contributing to tree mortality and ecosystem collapse. Understanding how embolism forms, spreads, and is repaired in plant tissues is critical for predicting plant resilience to water stress, but current models lack the necessary data to make sufficiently accurate predictions. The EMBIOMO project employs a multidisciplinary and multi-tool approach to address this challenge. By integrating on leaves ultra-fast optical imaging, advanced 3D micro-CT, and confocal microscopy, the project will capture embolism propagation with unprecedented temporal resolution and at high spatial resolution. In parallel, biomimetic systems replicating key aspects of plant leaves xylem will be developed to study embolism under controlled extreme conditions, such as negative pressure. These biomimetic models will not only help investigate embolism dynamics but also serve as validation platforms for advanced theoretical modeling of vascular flows in intricate fluidic networks. This synergistic combination of approaches will significantly advance the state of the art in plant hydraulics, enabling unprecedented mechanistic insights into embolism propagation, generating unique databases and opening unique perspectives for fluidic network dynamics studies, beyond plant vascular systems. The outcomes will be transformative, providing novel predictive models of plant vulnerability to droughts and contributing critical data to improve resilience strategies in agriculture and forest management, particularly in the face of increasing environmental stresses.