Where do leaf water leaks come from? Trade‐offs underlying the variability in minimum conductance across tropical savanna species with contrasting growth strategies

What is it about?

Even after complete stomatal closure, plants keep losing water from their leaves. Although this residual transpiration has substantial impacts on strategies of water use and conservation, little is known about the potential drivers underlying the variability of this trait across species. Here we show that, in addition to cuticle permeance, water leaks from stomata had a significant impact on overall residual transpiration, suggesting the existence of a trade-off between carbon assimilation efficiency and dehydration tolerance at foliar level

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