Review: Wind impacts on plant growth, mechanics and damage

•Mechanical stability is a major functional requirement of land plants.•Wind loading on plants varies temporally on time scales from years to seconds.•Plants change at scales from the cell to the whole plant to acclimate to the wind.•The process of wind damage is very similar in all plants.•Wind dam...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant science (Limerick) 2016-04, Vol.245, p.94-118
Main Authors: Gardiner, Barry, Berry, Peter, Moulia, Bruno
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acclimatization - physiology
Air Movements
Biomechanical Phenomena
Dynamic loading
Ecological disturbance
Environmental Sciences
Global Changes
Plant acclimation
Plant adaptation
Plant Development
Plant Leaves - physiology
Plant mechanics
Thigmomorphogenesis
Wind
Wind damage
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Summary:•Mechanical stability is a major functional requirement of land plants.•Wind loading on plants varies temporally on time scales from years to seconds.•Plants change at scales from the cell to the whole plant to acclimate to the wind.•The process of wind damage is very similar in all plants.•Wind damage can have major economic and ecological impacts. Land plants have adapted to survive under a range of wind climates and this involve changes in chemical composition, physical structure and morphology at all scales from the cell to the whole plant. Under strong winds plants can re-orientate themselves, reconfigure their canopies, or shed needles, leaves and branches in order to reduce the drag. If the wind is too strong the plants oscillate until the roots or stem fail. The mechanisms of root and stem failure are very similar in different plants although the exact details of the failure may be different. Cereals and other herbaceous crops can often recover after wind damage and even woody plants can partially recovery if there is sufficient access to water and nutrients. Wind damage can have major economic impacts on crops, forests and urban trees. This can be reduced by management that is sensitive to the local site and climatic conditions and accounts for the ability of plants to acclimate to their local wind climate. Wind is also a major disturbance in many plant ecosystems and can play a crucial role in plant regeneration and the change of successional stage.
ISSN:0168-9452
1873-2259
DOI:10.1016/j.plantsci.2016.01.006