caa a22 4500 477111831 CHVBK 20180405111611.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19961101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00011657 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00011657 Robinson David Cellular and Environmental Physiology Department, Scottish Crop Research Institute, DD2 5DA, Dundee, UK aut Variation, co-ordination and compensation in root systems in relation to soil variability [Elektronische Daten] [David Robinson] In soil, the distributions of nutrients, water, pores, and microbes vary in time and space. These, in turn, contribute to the variations in root form and function that we see when we grow plants in soil and other non-uniform media. This paper addresses three questions about the consequences of non-uniform distributions of nutrients: how do roots respond to variations in nutrient distribution?; how specific are such responses?; to what extent can we predict them? Roots vary both physiologically and structurally in response to nutrient distributions. The first type of response is primarily a stimulation of nutrient uptake rate per unit of root; the second, a stimulation of root growth where and when the nutrient is most readily available. The first tends to be nutrient-specific and its magnitude related to the extent of the non-uniformity in nutrient availability. The second is less-specific in the sense that the magnitude of the response, when there is one, varies little from one nutrient to another. This leads to apparently exaggerated compensatory capacity, especially for ions that are relatively mobile in soil, such as NO3 -. Because the physiological and molecular mechanisms of these responses are largely unknown, we cannot say how they are co-ordinated within individual plants. Nor can we predict a plant's responses precisely. What we can do is generate statistical descriptions of them by comparing data collected in many experiments for many species. This produces general rules that summarise what happens, but which probably cannot be applied a priori to specific cases. H Lambers Section editor Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996 compensation nationallicence growth nationallicence heterogeneity nationallicence inflow nationallicence nutrient nationallicence roots nationallicence soil nationallicence variability nationallicence Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl 187/1(1996-11-01), 57-66 0032-079X 187:1<57 1996 187 11104 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00011657 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00011657 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Robinson David Cellular and Environmental Physiology Department, Scottish Crop Research Institute, DD2 5DA, Dundee, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl/ 187/1(1996-11-01), 57-66 0032-079X 187:1<57 1996 187 11104 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer