Number coordination of stomata and minor vessels and its
implication
We also found strong covariation between terminal xylem vessel number
and stomatal number per plant (Fig. 5a; Table 1). That is: in order to
ensure the balance between liquid- and vapour-phase water conductance,
convergent scaling exists between total stomatal area and xylem area,
both at the entire plant and at individual leaf level; and this
area-scaling pattern was driven by the covariation of stomata numbers
and minor vessel numbers per plant.
These findings provide empirical support for, as well as a better
functional understanding of the xylem structure models and have broad
implications for integrating xylem widening (Anfodillo et al. ,
2006, Olson, Anfodillo, Rosell, Petit, Crivellaro, Isnard, León‐Gómez,
Alvarado‐Cárdenas & Castorena, 2014, Zhong et al. , 2019) and
stomatal distribution; these linkages are illustrated in Fig. 1. Further
studies on plant water relations should incorporate the transport
mechanism of water from the minor vein xylem vessels to stomata with
xylem architecture.