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Acclimation of photosynthesis to temperature in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea

  • Original Papers
  • Published:
Photosynthetica

Abstract

Plants differ in how much the response of net photosynthetic rate (P N) to temperature (T) changes with the T during leaf development, and also in the biochemical basis of such changes in response. The amount of photosynthetic acclimation to T and the components of the photosynthetic system involved were compared in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea to determine how well A. thaliana might serve as a model organism to study the process of photosynthetic acclimation to T. Responses of single-leaf gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence to CO2 concentration measured over the range of 10–35 °C for both species grown at 15, 21, and 27 °C were used to determine the T dependencies of maximum rates of carboxylation (VCmax), photosynthetic electron transport (Jmax), triose phosphate utilization rate (TPU), and mesophyll conductance to carbon dioxide (g’m). In A. thaliana, the optimum T of P N at air concentrations of CO2 was unaffected by this range of growth T, and the T dependencies of VCmax, Jmax, and g’m were also unaffected by growth T. There was no evidence of TPU limitation of P N in this species over the range of measurement conditions. In contrast, the optimum T of P N increased with growth T in B. oleracea, and the T dependencies of VCmax, Jmax, and g’m, as well as the T at which TPU limited P N all varied significantly with growth T. Thus B. oleracea had much a larger capacity to acclimate photosynthetically to moderate T than did A. thaliana.

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Abbreviations

C i :

[CO2] in the intercellular airspace

C c :

[CO2] at ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase

Chl:

chlorophyll

g’m:

mesophyll conductance to CO2

J:

rate of photosynthetic electron transport

Jmax :

maximum rate of photosynthetic electron transport

KC :

Michaelis constant for CO2

KO :

Michaelis constant for O2

LED:

light emitting diode

P N :

net photosynthetic rate

PPFD:

photosynthetic photon flux density

RuBPCO:

ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase

T :

temperature

TPU:

triose phosphate utilization

VCmax :

the maximum rate of carboxylation of RuBPCO

ΔHa :

energy of activation

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA-ARS Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory, B-001, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, MD, 20705-2350, USA

    J. A. Bunce

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Bunce, J.A. Acclimation of photosynthesis to temperature in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea . Photosynthetica 46, 517–524 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-008-0088-7

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