N. Michele Holbrook

About

N. Michele Holbrook is a professor whose research focuses on the physics and physiology of vascular transport in plants. Her work aims to understand how constraints on the movement of water and solutes between soil and leaves influence ecological and evolutionary processes. Her research addresses questions related to cavitation, stomatal mechanics, solute transport, cell wall mechanics, and wood anatomy. She is actively involved in studying the physiological mechanisms underlying plant vascular systems and their ecological implications.

Research topics

• Geology
• Meteorology
• Geography
• Atmospheric sciences
• Agronomy
• Environmental science
• Composite material
• Botany
• Ecology
• Materials science

Selected publications

• Combined influence of soil moisture and atmospheric evaporative demand is important for accurately predicting US maize yields

  Nature Food · 2020 · 242 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Testing the Münch hypothesis of long distance phloem transport in plants

  eLife · 2016-06-02 · 175 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Long distance transport in plants occurs in sieve tubes of the phloem. The pressure flow hypothesis introduced by Ernst Münch in 1930 describes a mechanism of osmotically generated pressure differentials that are supposed to drive the movement of sugars and other solutes in the phloem, but this hypothesis has long faced major challenges. The key issue is whether the conductance of sieve tubes, including sieve plate pores, is sufficient to allow pressure flow. We show that with increasing distanc…

  PublisherDOI

• Comparing optimal and empirical stomatal conductance models for application in Earth system models

  Global Change Biology · 2018-09-16 · 116 citations

  article

  Abstract Earth system models ( ESM s) rely on the calculation of canopy conductance in land surface models ( LSM s) to quantify the partitioning of land surface energy, water, and CO 2 fluxes. This is achieved by scaling stomatal conductance, g w , determined from physiological models developed for leaves. Traditionally, models for g w have been semi‐empirical, combining physiological functions with empirically determined calibration constants. More recently, optimization theory has been applied…

  PublisherDOI

• Maintenance of carbohydrate transport in tall trees

  Nature Plants · 2017-11-29 · 84 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Comparing different methods for determining forest evapotranspiration and its components at multiple temporal scales

  The Science of The Total Environment · 2018-03-20 · 59 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Physiology of Long Distance Assimilate Transport

  NSF · $337k · 2015–2020

• Collaborative Research: Testing the Munch Hypothesis: Hydraulics of Phloem Transport in Vines and Trees

  NSF · $373k · 2010–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Peter Huybers

  Harvard University

  82 shared

• Nathaniel D. Mueller

  University of Nebraska–Lincoln

  73 shared

• Ethan E. Butler

  Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

  70 shared

• A. N. Rhines

  Netflix (United States)

  67 shared

• D. K. Ray

  University of Minnesota

  65 shared

• Stefan Siebert

  University of Göttingen

  65 shared

• Maciej A. Zwieniecki

  University of California, Davis

  50 shared

• C. Kevin Boyce

  Stanford University

  27 shared

Labs

• Holbrook GroupPI

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• Elsie Sunderlandh-73
• Sheila Jasanoffh-72