Florence Volaire, Sean M. Gleason, Andrea Carminati, Robert J. Griffin‐Nolan, Maurizio Mencuccini, Karim Barkaoui, Sandra Bucci, Marc Carriquí, Louise H. Comas, Aude Coupel‐Ledru, Alistair Leverett, Rose A. Marks, Jordi Martínez‐vilalta, Lucy Rowland, Jared J. Stewart, Vincent Vadez
A framework of traits and strategies for drought adaptation is critical for understanding the effects of climate change on natural and cultivated plant communities. The 'growth potential - stress survival' trade-off, a key concept in ecology, underpins plant ecological strategies but lacks a time dimension that is crucial to plant responses to drought. We built a three-phase physiological model incorporating both plant traits and time as a gradient of decreasing water availability, which allowed the identification of traits involved in maximizing growth potential (Phase I), growth/turgor maintenance during drought (Phase II - drought resistance), or survival after growth cessation (Phase III - drought survival). Modelling plant water use for annuals, perennials, resurrection, and succulent species revealed a trade-off between water use in Phases I-II (water acquisition associated with tissue dehydration avoidance) and Phase III duration (water conservation associated with water storage capacity and/or tissue dehydration/desiccation tolerance). This trade-off underpins a novel framework of plant water use economics among and within species. As growth potential and growth/turgor maintenance, that is, drought resistance, trade-off with drought survival duration, a time-informed framework considering the balance between productivity and drought resilience is required in plant growth models and in breeding efforts for plant drought adaptation.