Abstract Detail

Wood: Biology of a Living Tissue

Schenk, H. Jochen [1].

Wood: Biology of a Living Tissue.

Wood is secondary xylem tissue that is produced by secondary growth. Wood is of vast ecological and economic importance, as a huge store of terrestrial biomass and major component of the global carbon and water cycles, as a source of fuel, paper, and building material. It is often characterized as "dead tissue", because the conduits for water transport are dead at maturity, as are most of the fiber cells in angiosperm wood. The field of research that addresses water transport through wood is commonly referred to as "plant hydraulics", which also implies a purely physical process that requires no activities of living cells. Yet, living cells commonly make up 5-10% of wood volume in gymnosperms and 20-40% in angiosperms, in some cases even up to 80%! The discovery by Eduard Strasburger in 1891 that water transport could occur without the aid of living parenchyma cells largely relegated these cells to the sidelines of wood research, and their main function in textbooks is usually characterized simply as storage. In recent years, new research has focused on the many functions of these living wood cells for transport and storage of water, carbon, and nutrients, as well as for pathogen defense. New functions have been found or hypothesized, including osmoregulation, ionic control of hydraulic conductance, maintenance of the water transport pathway through embolism repair, and secretion of a large number of proteins and even lipids into xylem sap. Other recent research has focused on the transition of living young vessels and tracheids to their dead state at maturity. This symposium will address current research on the development, structure, and physiology of living wood, including the development of vessels, the development and structure of symplastic networks of living cells, the ultrastructure and physiology of specialized vessel-associated cells, the role of living cells in water transport and storage, the dynamics of carbohydrates in living wood cells, and the role of living wood cells in pathogen defense. The goal of this symposium is nothing less than to raise wood from the dead and provide a broad overview of the many fascinating new findings about this very important living tissue.

1 - California State University Fullerton, Department Of Biological Science, PO Box 6850, Fullerton, CA, 92834-6850, USA

Keywords:
none specified

Presentation Type: Symposium Presentation
Session: SY09, Wood: Biology of a Living Tissue
Location: Oglethrope Auditorium/Savannah International Trade and Convention Center
Date: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: SY09SUM
Abstract ID:997
Candidate for Awards:None