PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mary Benoit
AU  - Spenser Waller
AU  - Stacy L. Wilder
AU  - Michael J. Schueller
AU  - Richard A. Ferrieri
TI  - Smoke exposed roots causes reduced whole-plant vascular sectoriality
AID  - 10.1101/2022.04.28.489912
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.04.28.489912
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/04/29/2022.04.28.489912.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/04/29/2022.04.28.489912.full
AB  - While photosynthates are partitioned by the relative strength of young developing leaves and roots as sinks for carbon-based resources, many plants also show a close relationship between partitioning, phyllotaxy and vascular connectivity, yielding sectorial patterns of allocation. We examined whether smoke influences phloem vascular sectoriality in a model plant, sunflower (Helianthis annuus L.). Using radioactive 11CO2 administered to single photosynthetically active source leaves, we examined the transport behavior and allocation patterns of 11C-photosynthates using gamma counting and autoradiography. Soil treated with liquid smoke caused significant reductions in phloem sectoriality involving young sink leaves and roots. The resulting increase in vascular connectivity could benefit young plant performance by allowing a more uniform allocation of nutrients and/or stress signal molecules at a critical time of their growth.One-Sentence Summary Smoke-exposed roots exhibit a significant reduction in phloem sectoriality involving carbon transport to young sink leaves and roots.