Because of intense transpiration and growth, the needs of plants for water can be immense. Yet water in the soil is most often heterogeneous if not scarce due to more and more frequent and intense drought episodes. The converse context, flooding, is often associated with marked oxygen deficiency and can also challenge the plant water status. Under our feet, roots achieve an incredible challenge to meet the water demand of the plant’s aerial parts under such dramatically different environmental conditions. For this, they continuously explore the soil, building a highly complex, branched architecture. On shorter time scales, roots keep adjusting their water transport capacity (their so-called hydraulics) locally or globally. While the mechanisms that directly underlie root growth and development as well as tissue hydraulics are being uncovered, the signalling mechanisms that govern their local and systemic adjustments as a function of water availability remain largely unknown. A comprehensive understanding of root architecture and hydraulics as a whole (in other terms, root hydraulic architecture) is needed to apprehend the strategies used by plants to optimize water uptake and possibly improve crops regarding this crucial trait.

由于大量蒸腾和生长，植物对水的需求可能非常巨大。然而，由于越来越多的干旱频发，土壤中的水通常是异质的，即使不是稀缺的。相反的情况，洪水通常与明显的缺氧有关，也可能挑战植物的水分状况。在如此巨大的环境条件下，树根在我们的脚下面临着巨大的挑战，难以满足植物地上部分的水分需求。为此，他们不断探索土壤，建造了高度复杂的分支建筑。在较短的时间范围内，根系会在本地或全球范围内不断调整其水传输能力（所谓的水力传输）。虽然发现了直接根部生长发育以及组织水力学基础的机制，依赖于水的可用性来控制其局部和系统调节的信号传导机制仍然未知。需要全面了解根系结构和整体水力状况（换句话说，根系水力结构），以理解植物用于优化水分吸收并可能改善作物的这一重要性状的策略。