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Photoperiod-Induced Geographic Variation in Plant Defense Chemistry

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Abstract

Spatial variation in chemical defense of plants can be caused by genetic, biotic, and abiotic factors. For example, many plants exhibit a latitudinal cline in chemical defense, potentially due to latitudinal variation in abiotic environmental factors such as the light regime during the growing season. In the worldwide distributed Plantago lanceolata, the levels of deterrent iridoid glycosides (IGs), aucubin and catalpol, vary geographically, including latitudinally. To examine whether latitudinal variation in photoperiod can explain part of this geographic variation, plants from the Netherlands and Finland were exposed to two different photoperiods, simulating the Dutch (middle European) and Finnish (northern European) light period during the growing season. The experiment showed that although most variation in IG content was genetic, plants from both Dutch and Finnish origin produce relatively more catalpol under a northern European than under a middle European photoperiod. Our results confirm that latitudinal effects on photoperiod can contribute to geographic variation in plant defense chemistry, which should be considered when studying latitudinal clines in plant-enemy interactions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Jimi Kirvesoja for help with the chemical analyses, Remieke Niermeyer and Annamien Koomen for collecting seeds in Ede, the Netherlands. We thank Sandra Varga, two anonymous reviewers and an editor for helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript. This research was funded by the Academy of Finland grant 128508 to JHR. JAE acknowledges funding from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    J. H. Reudler & Jelmer A. Elzinga

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  1. J. H. Reudler
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Correspondence to Jelmer A. Elzinga.

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Reudler, J.H., Elzinga, J.A. Photoperiod-Induced Geographic Variation in Plant Defense Chemistry. J Chem Ecol 41, 139–148 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0550-5

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