Ultrasound Pulse Emission Spectroscopy Method to Characterize Xylem Conduits in Plant Stems

Abstract

Although it is well known that plants emit acoustic pulses under drought stress, the exact origin of the waveform of these ultrasound pulses has remained elusive. Here, we present evidence for a correlation between the characteristics of the waveform of these pulses and the dimensions of xylem conduits in plants. Using a model that relates the resonant vibrations of a vessel to its dimension and viscoelasticity, we extract the xylem radii from the waveforms of ultrasound pulses and show that these are correlated and in good agreement with optical microscopy. We demonstrate the versatility of the method by applying it to shoots of ten different vascular plant species. In particular, for Hydrangea quercifolia , we further extract vessel element lengths with our model and compare them with scanning electron cryomicroscopy. The ultrasonic, noninvasive characterization of internal conduit dimensions enables a breakthrough in speed and accuracy in plant phenotyping and stress detection.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物茎内の木部導管寸法を超音波波形から非侵襲的に推定する手法を開発し、光学顕微鏡および電子顕微鏡と比較検証している。植物フェノタイピングへの応用が中心である。

Code and data availability

The article reports ultrasound pulse recordings, microscopy images, and MATLAB analysis for xylem phenotyping, but no public dataset, image repository, or author code URL is provided. The Data Availability statement only offers data from the corresponding author upon request, and no public repository or deposit isnamed

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