High water use in desert plants exposed to extreme heat

Many plant water use models predict leaves maximize carbon assimilation while minimizing water loss via transpiration. Alternate scenarios may occur at high temperature, including heat avoidance, where leaves increase water loss to evaporatively cool regardless of carbon uptake; or heat failure, where leaves non-adaptively lose water also regardless of carbon uptake. We hypothesized that these alternative scenarios are common in species exposed to hot environments, with heat avoidance more common in species with high construction-cost leaves. Diurnal measurements of leaf gas exchange and temperature for 11 Sonoran Desert species revealed 37% of these species increased transpiration in the absence of increased carbon uptake. High leaf mass per area partially predicted this behavior (r²=0.39). These data are consistent with heat avoidance and heat failure, but failure is less likely given the ecological dominance of the focal species. These behaviors are not yet captured in any extant plant water use model.