From talking trees to talking forests: assessing plant performance by monitoring gas pressure inside angiosperm sapwood

• Applicant: Dr. Luciano Pereira
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508216003

The development of smart sensors and artificial intelligence is opening up new avenues in the field of plant ecology and physiology to understand the bigger picture of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Talking trees represent one example of how technological applications can be used to monitor the performance of trees in vivo, allowing us to predict how individual trees responds to conditions of anthropogenic global change. However, we lack affordable sensors that can measure distinct physiological traits over long periods, at a large-scale, and at high-temporal resolution. By fulfilling these requirements, it is feasible to expand the talking tree concept to a talking forest, from an individual tree level to a diverse forest community level. Recently, we demonstrated that the amount of gas extracted from plant xylem is strongly correlated to the xylem water potential and leaf gas exchange in Citrus plants. The amount of gas extracted was also correlated to the total gas pressure prior to extraction. Because the gas pressure in secondary xylem of plants can easily be monitored using a low-cost apparatus with a high temporal resolution, this project focusses on basic questions related to the gas pressure in wood, and the development of a novel sensor. Preliminary data show that pneumatic measurements are sensitive enough to detect fast and dynamic plant response to changes in light intensity, temperature, and transpiration. The overall goal of this project is to investigate how the total gas pressure in xylem tissue of woody angiosperm plants is related to plant performance, and whether this trait can be used in the field to model forest resilience. This aim will be addressed in three complementary work packages: (1) designing and testing the new sensor, (2) investigating the mechanisms that underlie the total gas pressure in sapwood, and (3) assessing plant performance based on gas pressure measurements. The new phytosensor, which we call IoTree (“Internet of Trees”), will be based on a device that we previously designed to extract gas from plant tissues, and relies on an open-source, low-cost (< 20€ per sensor) technology. The gas pressure measurements will be correlated to various plant growth traits and environmental parameters in greenhouse and field experiments. Then, we will develop computational solutions adapted to a big data approach using artificial intelligence, which may enable us to analyse long-term and high-temporal resolution signals from talking forests. Such monitoring approach would contribute to predicting plant productivity, mortality, and resilience to biotic and abiotic stress factors at the forest community level, such as drought or pathogens.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants