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From Root Anatomy to Ecosystem Water Fluxes | Dr. Juan Baca Cabrera
About
I am YESP member Dr. Juan Baca Cabrera and currently work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences – Agrosphere (IBG-3) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jan Vanderborght.
My research focuses on understanding how grasses, particularly cereal crops, regulate water and carbon fluxes across scales, from the anatomical properties of roots to ecosystem-level exchanges with the atmosphere. I am particularly interested in the hydraulic processes that govern water transport through the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum and their interaction with carbon assimilation, determining how plants respond to environmental change, including drought, rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, and increasing evaporative demand.
To address these questions, I combine controlled experiments, phenotyping approaches, and mechanistic modeling. My work integrates measurements of root anatomy and hydraulic properties, together with assessments of leaf gas exchange and stomatal behavior, with plant- and ecosystem-scale models to identify the processes linking belowground water uptake to aboveground carbon and water fluxes. By linking structural and functional plant traits across organizational scales, I aim to improve our mechanistic understanding of plant water use and its response to changing environmental conditions.
Ultimately, my goal is to bridge belowground and aboveground perspectives in plant science and contribute to more reliable predictions of crop and ecosystem responses to future climate scenarios.
Research Topics
- Plant Hydraulics
- Root and Shoot Physiology
- Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Water and Carbon Fluxes
- Mechanistic Plant Modeling
Modulation of soil water fluxes by changes in vegetation properties and management
Within CRC DETECT, and together with our partners at the University of Bonn, we investigate how changes in crop traits alter water and carbon fluxes from roots to ecosystems. By combining root phenotyping, physiological measurements, field experiments, and multi-scale modeling, we found that historical wheat breeding modified both above- and belowground traits, promoting more conservative water-use strategies. These changes influenced transpiration and carbon allocation at the field scale and affected water fluxes across larger spatial and temporal scales. Our work identifies key vegetation properties controlling plant water use and provides new approaches for integrating plant physiological processes into ecosystem-scale predictions.
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Last Modified: 04.08.2026