Several columnar cacti growing in a desert region with mountains in the background. Late afternoon light on the mountains.

New paper: Plant water use theory should incorporate hypotheses about extreme environments, population ecology, and community ecology

How and why do plants use water? We just wrote an opinion piece on this topic, calling for a broader appreciation for the multiple values of water to plants, beyond its utility for instantaneous carbon gain. The piece suggests alternate directions for current theory to move into, and critiques the neoclassical economic assumptions of current plant water use theory.

You can read it at New Phytologist or download a PDF directly.