Diaphragms and flooding survival

Abstract

The wider implications of these observations extend further than just the flooding resistance of diaphragms. In a widely researched review, Raven recently revisited the teasing question of maintenance of gas space in plants (Raven, 1996). This revealed that hydrophobicity rather than hydrophily is almost exclusively regarded as essential for both development and maintenance of gas spaces. These new findings of Soukup et al. should prompt some wider appraisal of the flooding resistance properties of cell wall hydrophily coupled to air-water menisci in the context of intercellular gas-space maintenance.