Maximum theoretical stomatal conductance

f.gsmax(
  Sarea = 0.78,
  Sdensity = 400,
  Sdepth = 5,
  Diffusivity = 0.282/1000,
  mvair = 24.5/1000
)

Arguments

Sarea: Maximum area of the aperture of stomata when open (microm2).
Sdensity: Number of stomata per mm2 of leaf.
Sdepth: Stomatal pore depth (micro m).
Diffusivity: Diffusivity of water vapor in air (m2 s-1).
mvair: Molar volume of air (m3 mol-1).

Value

Maximum stomatal conductance to water vapour in mol m-2 s-1

Details

This function calculates the maximum theoretical conductance value according to morphological data and the physics of diffusion through pores. It follows the equation from Franks and Berling 2009.

References

Franks PJ, Beerling DJ. Maximum leaf conductance driven by CO2 effects on stomatal size and density over geologic time. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009;106(25):10343-10347. doi:10.1073/pnas.0904209106

Examples

## The density of stomata is around 400 stomata.mm-2 in the tropical species.
## The length of the stomata is around 20 micro m. Following Franks and Beerling 2009 we can estimate the
## Sarea of the stomata: pi*(20/4*10^-6)^2 and the Sdepth: 20*10^-6/4.
f.gsmax(Sarea=0.78,Sdensity=400,Sdepth=5)
#> [1] 0.6210226