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Ecological significance of light quality in optimizing plant defence.

ABSTRACT: Plants balance the allocation of resources between growth and defence to optimize fitness in a competitive environment. Perception of neighbour-detection cues, such as a low ratio of red to far-red (R:FR) radiation, activates a suite of shade-avoidance responses that include stem elongation and upward leaf movement, whilst simultaneously downregulating defence. This downregulation is hypothesized to benefit the plant either by mediating the growth-defence balance in favour of growth in high plant densities or, alternatively, by mediating defence of individual leaves such that those most photosynthetically productive are best protected. To test these hypotheses, we used a 3D functional-structural plant model of Brassica nigra that mechanistically simulates the interactions between plant architecture, herbivory, and the light environment. Our results show that plant-level defence expression is a strong determinant of plant fitness and that leaf-level defence mediation by R:FR can provide a fitness benefit in high densities. However, optimal plant-level defence expression does not decrease monotonically with plant density, indicating that R:FR mediation of defence alone is not enough to optimize defence between densities. Therefore, assessing the ecological significance of R:FR-mediated defence is paramount to better understand the evolution of this physiological linkage and its implications for crop breeding.

SUBMITTER: Douma JC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6392137 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecological significance of light quality in optimizing plant defence.

Douma Jacob C JC de Vries Jorad J Poelman Erik H EH Dicke Marcel M Anten Niels P R NPR Evers Jochem B JB

Plant, cell & environment 20190301 3

Plants balance the allocation of resources between growth and defence to optimize fitness in a competitive environment. Perception of neighbour-detection cues, such as a low ratio of red to far-red (R:FR) radiation, activates a suite of shade-avoidance responses that include stem elongation and upward leaf movement, whilst simultaneously downregulating defence. This downregulation is hypothesized to benefit the plant either by mediating the growth-defence balance in favour of growth in high plan ...[more]

PMID: 30702750

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Project description:The cold acclimation process is regulated by many factors like ambient temperature, day length, light intensity, or hormonal status. Experiments with plants grown under different light-quality conditions indicate that the plant response to cold is also a light-quality-dependent process. Here, the role of light quality in the cold response was studied in one-month-old Arabidopsis thaliana (Col‐0) plants exposed for one week to 4 °C at short‐day conditions under white (100 and 20 μmol m‐2s‐1), blue or red (20 μmol m‐2s‐1) light conditions. An upregulated expression of CBF1, an inhibition of photosynthesis, and an increase in membrane damage showed that blue light enhanced the effect of low temperature. Interestingly, cold-treated plants under blue and red light showed only limited freezing tolerance compared to white light cold-treated plants. Next, the specificity of the light quality signal in cold response was evaluated in Arabidopsis accessions originating from different and contrasting latitudes. In all but one Arabidopsis accessions, blue light increased the effect of cold on photosynthetic parameters and electrolyte leakage. This effect was not found for Ws-0, which lacks functional CRY2 protein, indicating its role in the cold response. Proteomics data confirmed significant differences between red and blue light treated plants at low temperature and showed that the cold response is highly accession specific. In general, blue light increased mainly the cold-stress related proteins and red light induced higher expression of chloroplast-related proteins, which correlated with higher photosynthetic parameters in red light cold-treated plants. Altogether, our data suggest that light modulates two distinct mechanisms during the cold treatment - red light driven cell function maintaining program and blue light activated specific cold response. The importance of mutual complementarity of these mechanisms was demonstrated by significantly higher freezing tolerance of cold-treated plants under white light.

Project description:The cold acclimation process is regulated by many factors like ambient temperature, day length, light intensity, or hormonal status. Experiments with plants grown under different light quality conditions indicate that the plant response to cold is also a light-quality-dependent process. Here, the role of light quality in the cold response was studied in 1-month-old Arabidopsis thaliana (Col-0) plants exposed for 1 week to 4°C at short-day conditions under white (100 and 20 μmol m-2s-1), blue, or red (20 μmol m-2s-1) light conditions. An upregulated expression of CBF1, inhibition of photosynthesis, and an increase in membrane damage showed that blue light enhanced the effect of low temperature. Interestingly, cold-treated plants under blue and red light showed only limited freezing tolerance compared to white light cold-treated plants. Next, the specificity of the light quality signal in cold response was evaluated in Arabidopsis accessions originating from different and contrasting latitudes. In all but one Arabidopsis accession, blue light increased the effect of cold on photosynthetic parameters and electrolyte leakage. This effect was not found for Ws-0, which lacks functional CRY2 protein, indicating its role in the cold response. Proteomics data confirmed significant differences between red and blue light-treated plants at low temperatures and showed that the cold response is highly accession-specific. In general, blue light increased mainly the cold-stress-related proteins and red light-induced higher expression of chloroplast-related proteins, which correlated with higher photosynthetic parameters in red light cold-treated plants. Altogether, our data suggest that light modulates two distinct mechanisms during the cold treatment - red light-driven cell function maintaining program and blue light-activated specific cold response. The importance of mutual complementarity of these mechanisms was demonstrated by significantly higher freezing tolerance of cold-treated plants under white light.

Dataset Information

Ecological significance of light quality in optimizing plant defence.

Publications

Ecological significance of light quality in optimizing plant defence.

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