Sexual dimorphism in poplar plants: Resource trade-offs and sex-specific strategic responses during leaf senescence

Clicks: 26
ID: 329314
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #56 of 112 articles by views in Tree physiology

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Leaf senescence is a critical developmental transition that drives nutrient remobilization, profoundly impacting plant fitness and forest productivity. In dioecious plants, divergent reproductive costs drive sex-specific life-history strategies, yet how these fundamental differences are rewired at the senescence level remains largely unknown. Here, integrating physiological, hormonal, metabolomic, and transcriptomic analyses, we reveal a striking sexual dimorphism in the senescence trajectories of the perennial tree Populus deltoides. Males execute a "fast-recycling" strategy characterized by accelerated canopy yellowing, massive reactive oxygen species (ROS) bursts, rapid nitrogen export, and synergistic surges in abscisic acid (ABA) and salicylic acid (SA), which collectively support enhanced vegetative growth. In contrast, females adopt a "maintenance-and-defense" strategy, retaining higher chlorophyll levels and mitigating oxidative stress through enhanced antioxidant metabolism to prolong leaf longevity. By constructing hierarchical regulatory networks, we identify a male-biased HD-ZIP/MYB transcriptional cascade that acts as a master amplifier of senescence signals and is associated with downstream effector genes (such as PLIP2, ATGAP1, and ASG1) involved in lipid degradation and cell death. Our findings provide a comprehensive multi-omics framework demonstrating that sex shapes the fundamental paradigm of leaf senescence, highlighting an evolutionary trade-off between rapid nutrient remobilization and prolonged organ maintenance.
Reference Key
openalex_W7213929099 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Fang He, Yuan Zhang, Shuang-Lian Deng, Xing-Yu Liu, Guan-Ru Ren, Xin-Ran Yu, Hao Li, Ting Wang, Yang Xu, Xinyue Cui, Tiantian Lin
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal Tree physiology
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/treephys/tpag139
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpag139
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.