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Apex structures enhance water drainage on leaves.

ABSTRACT: The rapid removal of rain droplets at the leaf apex is critical for leaves to avoid damage under rainfall conditions, but the general water drainage principle remains unclear. We demonstrate that the apex structure enhances water drainage on the leaf by employing a curvature-controlled mechanism that is based on shaping a balance between reduced capillarity and enhanced gravity components. The leaf apex shape changes from round to triangle to acuminate, and the leaf surface changes from flat to bent, resulting in the increase of the water drainage rate, high-dripping frequencies, and the reduction of retention volumes. For wet tropical plants, such as Alocasia macrorrhiza, Gaussian curvature reconfiguration at the drip tip leads to the capillarity transition from resistance to actuation, further enhancing water drainage to the largest degree possible. The phenomenon is distinct from the widely researched liquid motion control mechanisms, and it offers a specific parametric approach that can be applied to achieve the desired fluidic behavior in a well-controlled way.

SUBMITTER: Wang T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6995007 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Apex structures enhance water drainage on leaves.

Wang Ting T Si Yifan Y Dai Haoyu H Li Chuxin C Gao Can C Dong Zhichao Z Dong Zhichao Z Jiang Lei L

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200114 4

The rapid removal of rain droplets at the leaf apex is critical for leaves to avoid damage under rainfall conditions, but the general water drainage principle remains unclear. We demonstrate that the apex structure enhances water drainage on the leaf by employing a curvature-controlled mechanism that is based on shaping a balance between reduced capillarity and enhanced gravity components. The leaf apex shape changes from round to triangle to acuminate, and the leaf surface changes from flat to ...[more]

PMID: 31937663

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Project description:Water resource management and lake rehabilitation are global interest, to overcome the acute water scarcity facing most urban areas, especially in developing countries. Lake Mariut (LM) is an Egyptian lake that lies south of the Mediterranean Sea, and its management had a great interest in Alexandria's future development and as a part of the environmental sustainability of the Mediterranean basin. LM consists of 4 major basins, namely, main (MB), northwest (NWB), southwest (SWB), and fishery (FB). The MB has deteriorated as it consistently received (sewage and industrial) wastewaters till 2010. This was the date of diversion of the polluting sources as a rehabilitation step. The present work is made after elapsing 8 years from the diversion and aims at monitoring and assessing the status of the water quality not only of MB but also for the other 3 basins too. This was carried out twice, one in cold winter and the other in warm summer. The parameters studied were physico-chemical including water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen/hydrogen sulfide (DO/H2S), salinity, and chlorophyll a besides nutrient salts (nitrogen, N and phosphorus, P compounds). The results revealed that the waters of both MB and SWB basins were depleted in DO to a level difficult to sustain fish life and showed elevated levels of most nutrient salts. Trophically, all the studied basins were in eutrophic-hypereutrophic condition. As a result of pollution source diversion away from MB to be discharged in the downstream part of Umum Drain (UD), the levels of TN and TP entering Mex Bay through UD were slightly higher than the permissible limit and lower than dangerous loading. The applying of principle component analysis (PCA)-based classification approach, for obtaining the WQI on the current study, revealed that the FB, NWB, and SWB2000 showed a relatively good water quality when compared with MB. The depletion in the vital DO is catastrophic and needs urgent solution/s. One of the proposed solutions is the dredging of bottom spoiled organic-rich sediments. This and other suggested solutions are, however, discussed, evaluated, and presented.

Dataset Information

Apex structures enhance water drainage on leaves.

Publications

Apex structures enhance water drainage on leaves.

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