During my postdoctoral stay in France, I acquired a large experience for characterizing the main functional strategies to deal with drought in perennial plant species. On the one hand, I conducted a glasshouse experiment where we characterised functional strategies of drought survival and monitored the dynamics of root growth in four Mediterranean plant species of agronomic interest (Env. Exp. Bot. 87: 126-136), in collaboration with Florence Volaire (INRA-Montpellier). Results from this study supported evidence that there is not a single strategy to effectively cope with drought and reveal the diversity of adaptive mechanisms among coexisting species for promoting plant yield and hence sustainable agronomic functions under high levels of soil water stress.

 

On the other hand, I was also interested in understanding the plant ability (both in adults and seedlings) to grow and modify different morphological and physiological traits as potential mechanisms of acclimation to the expected decline in water resource (PPEES 15: 106-117; Oecologia 169: 565-577).