Friday, December 7, 2012

An Arbor Embolism? Why Trees Die In Drought | Redux

An Arbor Embolism? Why Trees Die In Drought

Excerpt:

It has to do with the way trees drink. They don't do it the way we do — they suck water up from the ground all the way to their leaves, through a bundle of channels in a part of the trunk called the xylem. The bundles are like blood vessels. When drought dries out the soil, a tree has to suck harder. And that can actually be dangerous, because sucking harder increases the risk of drawing air bubbles into the tree's plumbing. Enlarge Herve Cochard/Nature An air embolism in a narrow water-transporting cell in a leaf of a walnut tree, captured using light microscopy. Drought stress increases the likelihood of embolism, reduces photosynthesis and may eventually lead to plant death. Herve Cochard/Nature An air embolism in a narrow water-transporting cell in a leaf of a walnut tree, captured using light microscopy.

People:

Brendan Choat

Overall Sentiment: -0.348228

Relevance: 0.788066

SentimentQuote
-0.382838Brendan Choat explains: "As drought stress increases, you have more and more gas accumulating in the plumbing system, until they can't get any water up into the leaves. This is really bad news for the plant because this is like having an embolism in a human blood vessel."
0"So this is the key thing," Choat says, ...
0"So this is the key thing," Choat says, "that it would only take a small shift in terms of the moisture environment, the temperature ... to push these plants across the threshold."
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 3
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.382838
  • Mean: -0.12761266666667
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Bettina Engelbrecht

Overall Sentiment: -0.080662

Relevance: 0.445006

SentimentQuote
0"Instead," she says ...
-0.382008"Instead," she says of Choat's research, "we find, well, it's all the same — everyone is right at the edge and has a very risky strategy."
-0.287024"Now, we have to worry about all of them," she says. ...
-0.0784442"Now, we have to worry about all of them," she says. "We have to really deal with the problem at the global scale."
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 4
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.7474762
  • Mean: -0.18686905
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Nathan McDowell

Overall Sentiment: 0.0370703

Relevance: 0.28883

Key:

  • Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
  • The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
  • The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

Additional Info:

Region: Southwest

Overall Sentiment: 0.0137156

Relevance: 0.385819

Country: Australia

Overall Sentiment: -0.0374066

Relevance: 0.379438

Country: U.S.

Overall Sentiment: -0.0525517

Relevance: 0.347169

Disambiguation: Location | Region | AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | FilmEditorReferences:

City: Sydney

Overall Sentiment: -0.0473076

Relevance: 0.316603

Disambiguation: AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | OlympicBiddingCity | OlympicHostCity | TouristAttractionReferences:

Continent: Europe

Overall Sentiment: 0.0552256

Relevance: 0.303115

PrintMedia: Nature

Overall Sentiment: 0.40168

Relevance: 0.312254

Organization: University of Bayreuth

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.319297

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