Author
|
Submitted to: Photosynthetica
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 8/6/2008 Publication Date: 12/12/2008 Citation: Bunce, J.A. 2008. Acclimation of photosynthesis to temperature in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea. Photosynthetica. 46:517-524. Interpretive Summary: Arabidopsis is a weed which is often used to understand mechanisms behind plant responses to the environment. We tested whether it is a good tool to understand the responses of crop plants to global warming, by comparing its response with that of a related crop species. Arabidopsis had an extremely limited response, so can not be used to understand the complex responses of crops. This work will be of use to scientists adapting crops to global change conditions. Technical Abstract: Plants differ in how much the response of photosynthesis to temperature changes with the temperature during leaf development, and also in the biochemical basis of such changes in photosynthetic response. The amount of photosynthetic acclimation to temperature and the components of the photosynthetic system involved were compared in Arabidopsis and collards to determine how well Arabidopsis might serve as a model organism to study the process of photosynthetic acclimation to temperature. Responses of single-leaf gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence to carbon dioxide concentration were measured over a range of temperatures for both species grown at three temperatures. These measurements were used to determine the temperature dependencies of maximum rates of carboxylation and photosynthetic electron transport, triose phosphate utilization rate, and mesophyll conductance to carbon dioxide. In Arabidopsis, the optimum temperature of photosynthesis at air levels of carbon dioxide and the temperature dependencies of the photosynthetic partial processes were all unaffected by growth temperature. In contrast, the optimum temperature of photosynthesis increased with growth temperature in collards, and the temperature dependencies of all the photosynthetic partial processes also varied with growth temperature. It was concluded that collards had much a larger capacity to acclimate photosynthetically to temperature than Arabidopsis. |
