NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology for FY 2011

Rockwell Fulton E, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2011, Intersections of Biology and Mathematical and Physical Sciences. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow whose plan involves innovation at the intersection of biology with physics and applied mathematics. The research and training plan for this fellowship to Fulton Rockwell is entitled, "Is water lost from plant leaves as a liquid or a vapor?? The host institutions for this research are Cornell University and University of Chicago; and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Abraham Stroock and Charles Kevin Boyce. A fundamental gap in our understanding of leaf structure and function is whether transpiration follows a predominantly vapor or liquid path between the leaf veins and the `valves' on the leaf surface, the stomata. Answering this question will inform not only our understanding of leaf function, but also stomatal regulation of transpiration and the contributions of leaf structure to instantaneous water use efficiency, that is, carbon gained per water molecule transpired. The dominant mode of transport inside transpiring leaves remains an open question precisely because it occurs at the intersection of biology, chemical thermodynamics and transport phenomena. To address the question of competition between liquid and vapor, a combination of modeling and experimental determination of the internal geometry and material properties of leaves is being employed. Training in coupled heat and mass transport is provided by the Stroock lab at Cornell University, whose members combine expertise in chemical engineering and microfluidics with an interest in bio-mimetic design. Expertise in obtaining structural information from analysis of micro-CT scans of leaves comes from training in the Boyce lab, at the University of Chicago, which seeks to reconstruct the physiology of fossil plants based on structure-function relations observed in extant lineages. Broader impacts include developing educational materials appropriate to both adults and school groups on the life of trees that incorporate a perspective on plants informed by the research results.