Colloquium: Dr. Ying Fan - A Hydrologic Template for Understanding Plant Ecology, Evolution, and Impact on Solid Earth

Dr. Ying Fan
Rutgers

Topic: A Hydrologic Template for Understanding Plant Ecology, Evolution, and Impact on Solid Earth

Academic Host: Suzanne Anderson

Abstract: Motivated by questions on global change involving land plants, I will present evidence that (1) the subsurface hydrology regulates plant rooting depth which may help explain vegetation patterns today, and (2) this hydrologic regulation goes back in evolutionary times which may have shaped land plant evolution. A central link between land plants and their physical habitat is the subsurface organs, particularly the rooting depth that responds to soil water and oxygen profiles but is difficult to observe. I will describe a Climo-Topo Matrix as a hydrologic template that simplifies the spatiotemporal structures of water available to roots, and on this template five modes of root-groundwater associations (niches). I will then examine the modern ecology of rooting depth using >2500 individual rooting-depth observations to address part (1). To address part (2) I will present the very limited fossil evidence through the Paleozoic and a phylogenetic analysis (esp. phylogenetic niche conservatism) of rooting depth of 1,057 vascular-plant species. The results suggest that the subsurface hydrology (a mundane subject) and plant-roots’ response to it (an invisible subject) may hold some critical insights on how plants coevolved with the physical world.