Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 29: Posters - Multi-Cellular Systems

BP 29.3: Poster

Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-EG

Theoretical Model for Absorption Profiles in Xylem Networks — •Felix Meigel and Karen Alim — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany

Plant leaves receive their supply of nutrients from the soil through sap flow traveling up the plant stem and then being spread out within the leaf through the leaf's vascular network. Within sap flow nutrients are transported by advection and diffusion while they are readily absorbed into the leaf's cells. Assuming that all leaf cells require the same amount of nutrients one would expect the ideal case to be homogeneous absorption of nutrients throughout the entire leaf. Yet, the entire leaf only has one inflow of sap through the single vein connecting it to the plant stem. How must the leaf vascular network be set up such that a single inflow can give rise to homogeneous absorption of nutrients throughout a leaf? We present a model for the sap flow and the resulting absorption pattern in a leaf vascular network. We find that the sap influx rate is the dominating factor. There exists an optimal influx rate that corresponds to the most homogeneous absorption profile. We simplify the flow dynamics in an extended vascular network to a simple leaky pipeline. This toy model allows us to determine a simple scaling law for the optimal influx rate.