caa a22 4500 475751698 CHVBK 20180406123525.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170329e20001101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1023/A:1026513800380 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1023/A:1026513800380 Alpert Peter Department of Biology and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Plant Biology Graduate Programs, University of Massachusetts, 01003-5810, Amherst, MA, USA aut The discovery, scope, and puzzle of desiccation tolerance in plants [Elektronische Daten] [Peter Alpert] The modern scientific study of desiccation tolerance began in 1702 when Anthony von Leeuwenhoek discovered that rotifers could survive without water for months. By 1860, the controversy over whether organisms could dry up without dying had reached such a pitch that a special French commission was convened to adjudicate the dispute. In 2000, we know that a few groups of animals and a wide variety of plants can tolerate desiccation in the active, adult stages of their life cycles. Among plants, this includes many lichens and bryophytes, a few ferns, and a very few flowering plants, but no gymnosperms nor trees. Some desiccation-tolerant species can survive without water for over ten years, recover from desiccation to unmeasurably low water potentials, and, when plants are desiccated, endure temperature extremes from −272 to 100°C. Desiccation-tolerant plants occur on all continents but mainly in xeric habitats or microhabitats where the cover of desiccation-sensitive species is low. Two main puzzles arise from these patterns: What are the mechanisms by which plants tolerate desiccation? and Why are desiccation-tolerant plants not more ecologically widespread? Recent molecular and biochemical studies suggest that there are multiple mechanisms of tolerance, many of which involve protection from oxidants and from the loss of configuration of macromolecules during dehydration. Hypotheses to explain the restricted ecological range of desiccation-tolerance plants include inability to maintain a cumulative positive carbon balance during repeated cycles of wetting and drying and inherent trade offs between desiccation tolerance and growth rate. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000 Angiosperm nationallicence Biogeography nationallicence Bryophyte nationallicence Desiccation tolerance nationallicence Growth form nationallicence Habitat nationallicence History nationallicence Plant Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 151/1(2000-11-01), 5-17 1385-0237 151:1<5 2000 151 11258 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026513800380 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026513800380 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Alpert Peter Department of Biology and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Plant Biology Graduate Programs, University of Massachusetts, 01003-5810, Amherst, MA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Plant Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 151/1(2000-11-01), 5-17 1385-0237 151:1<5 2000 151 11258 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer