Model and reality of radial root water transport – EAUDISSECT

Water uptake by the roots of land plants is a key process for plant survival (and, indirectly, for our survival as well). In the actual context of climate change, water scarcity and water usage conflicts put pressure on farming conditions. A better understanding of water transport from outside of the plants to the inside and all throughout their tissues is likely to bring groundbreaking inputs for fundamental and applied research related to how plants work and adapt.
The first step of this transport is called “radial water transport”, during which water flows from the substrate through the various tissues of the root, and into the xylem vessels, which are conductive tissues that will export this water to the rest of the body.
From a research perspective radial water transport has been considered alternatively as a biological process or as a physical process. Each approach lacks insights from the other. Our project lies at the interface between both, and will try to establish new links between mathematical modeling and in vivo situations.
The objectives of Eaudissect are to:
1. Establish a model of radial water transport of a new type
2. Improve our capacity to measure hydraulic properties of all tissues crossed by water in the root during the uptake
3. Establish methods to validate the predictions of the mathematical model