On the air permeability of Populus pit

Abstract

Sap hydrodynamics in vascular cells of trees seems to be controlled by small membranes called pits. Understanding how the pit junctions regulate the sap flow and stop embolism by cavitation is today a challenging issue. The hypothesis that the pit porosity adjusts the flow under negative pressure and stops the air bubble diffusion need to be validated. In this talk, we will present the experimental results on Populus trees that support the idea that pits operate "passively" in a biological point of view. This work is based on atomic force microscope (AFM) experiments, which have been realised to measure quantitatively the mechanical properties of pits at the nanoscale.