TY - JOUR AU - Pieruschka, R. AU - Schurr, U. AU - Jahnke, S. TI - Lateral gas diffusion inside leaves JO - The journal of experimental botany VL - 56 SN - 0022-0957 CY - Oxford PB - Univ. Press M1 - PreJuSER-42750 SP - 857 - 864 PY - 2005 N1 - Record converted from VDB: 12.11.2012 AB - Diffusion of CO2 inside leaves is generally regarded to be from the substomatal cavities to the assimilating tissues, i.e. in the vertical direction of the leaf blades. However, lateral gas diffusion within intercellular air spaces may be much more effective than hitherto considered. In a previous work it was demonstrated that, when 'clamp-on' leaf chambers are used, leaf internal 'CO2 leakage' beyond the leaf chamber gaskets may seriously affect gas exchange measurement. This effect has been used in the present paper to quantify gas conductance (g(leaf,l), mmol m(-2) s(-1)) in the lateral directions within leaves and significant differences between homo- and heterobaric leaves were observed. For the homobaric leaves, lateral gas conductance measured over a distance of 6 or 8 mm (the widths of the chamber gaskets) was 2-20% of vertical conductance taken from published data measured over much smaller distances of 108-280 microm (the thickness of the leaves). The specific internal gas diffusion properties of the leaves have been characterized by gas conductivities (g*(leaf), micromol m(-1) s(-1)). Gas conductivities in the lateral directions of heterobaric leaves were found to be small but not zero. In homobaric leaves, they were between 67 and 209 micromol m(-1) s(-1) and thus even larger than those in the vertical direction of the leaf blades (between 15 and 78 micromol m(-1) s(-1)). The potential implications for experimentalists performing gas exchange measurements are discussed. KW - Carbon Dioxide: physiology KW - Diffusion KW - Phaseolus: physiology KW - Photosynthesis: physiology KW - Plant Leaves: physiology KW - Plant Transpiration: physiology KW - Soybeans: physiology KW - Time Factors KW - Tobacco: physiology KW - Vicia faba: physiology KW - Carbon Dioxide (NLM Chemicals) KW - J (WoSType) LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 C6 - pmid:15668225 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000227565100009 DO - DOI:10.1093/jxb/eri072 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/42750 ER -