WHy ROOT ARCHITECTURE IS IMPORTANT IN ...

21 downloads 0 Views 866KB Size Report
projected area, surface area, root volume, number of tips, crossings, forks, number ... was the surface area to volume ratio and percent of roots falling into the fine.
Why Root Architecture is Important in Weathering Miranda Galey 4, Dragos Zaharescu1,2, Katerina Dontsova1,2, Jon Chorover2, Carmen Burghelea1, Raina Maier2, Travis Huxman3, Jennifer Presler1 B2 Earthscience, The Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 2Dep. of Soil, Water & Environmental Science, The Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 3Dep. of Biological Sciences, Univ. of California, Irvine, CA 4College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME

1

Results

Fig. 5 >>>>

Fig. 6


Fig. 8


Fig 10 >>

Conclusions Fig. 4


Rhyolite grasses developed thicker diameter, higher volume and surface area, and greater biomass than basalt and granite counterparts (Fig. 2). The percent of roots with diameters under 0.3mm, classified as fine roots, were lower among plants grown on rhyolite than for other rocks. (Fig.3) The level of complexity in root systems was lower for plants grown on rhyolite, as was the surface area to volume ratio and percent of roots falling into the fine size root category.(Fig. 4, 5) Finer roots (