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Contrasting patterns of sun-red and shade-green leaves of Buxus microphylla in response to gradients of excess light during winter acclimation

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Abstract

Leaf reddening in overwintering evergreens largely restricts their application in landscapes and is generally triggered in response to excess light. To explore how leaves respond to excess light and examine the potential relevance of leaf reddening in this process, a comparative field study was conducted on the sun leaves (SUL), shade leaves (SHL) and three levels of artificially shaded sun leaves (SSUL) of Buxus microphylla ‘Wintergreen’. The seasonal changes in leaf colorations, chlorophyll (Chl) and carotenoid contents, leaf absorbance and chlorophyll fluorescence characteristics were investigated. The results showed that SUL upregulated Chl a/b with increased reductions in Chl b compared with Chl a, accumulated red pigments in the upper palisade mesophyll with reduced absorption in blue and red light but increased absorption in green light, and additionally, significantly downregulated photochemical activities through the sustained enhancement of energy dissipation in PSII antenna (ΦD) from fall to midwinter. In the SSUL, as the light intensity decreased, all of the above processes were mitigated except that the SSUL maintained constant absorptions in blue light region and whose levels were similar to those of the SUL and SHL. In contrast, the SHL maintained relatively high levels of Chl a and Chl b, remained completely green and showed regulated ΦD and ΦE (energy dissipation in PSII reaction centers) to maintain relatively high photochemical activity in the winter. We conclude that the sun leaves downregulate Chl contents to reduce the light absorption and simultaneously enhance sustained ΦD to dissipate most of the light energy, whereas shade leaves maintain relatively high Chl contents and demonstrate regulated proportions of ΦD and ΦE to match the extent to which the absorbed light can be utilized through photochemical reactions. The accumulated red pigments in sun phenotypes may provide a shading effect on Chls by directing energy to non-photosynthetic reaction centers in the blue light region where the absorption is offset by the reduced Chls.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Z08050602970801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Key Laboratory of Ornamental Plants Germplasm Innovation and Molecular Breeding, Beijing Laboratory of Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    Jingen Peng, Xueru Jiang, Mengxue Jia & Yan Liu

  2. Beijing Botanical Garden, Beijing, China

    Ling Guo

  3. College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    Rongfu Gao

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  1. Jingen Peng
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  2. Xueru Jiang
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  3. Mengxue Jia
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  4. Ling Guo
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  5. Rongfu Gao
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  6. Yan Liu
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Correspondence to Yan Liu.

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Communicated by K. Apostol.

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11738_2016_2274_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Fig. S1 Leaf colorations of B. microphylla ‘Wintergreen’ for the SUL, SSUL and SHL during the overwintering period (2012–2013). Fig. S2 Typical winter noon solar irradiance pattern of ambient light for the SUL, SSUL and SHL. The normalized spectra in the wavelength region (max = 1) are shown in the top right. The data were obtained from Jan. 25, 2015. All results are presented as the mean values of five replicates. Fig. S3 Spectra of the light source provided from a tungsten lamp in the leaf spectroscopic measurements. Fig. S4 The anthocyanin contents of the red sun and green shade leaves of Buxus microphylla ‘Wintergreen’ and Euonymus kiautschovicus (a winter red species reflecting the accumulation of anthocyanins) in the winter. The leaves were sampled on Jan. 5, 2012 and the anthocyanins were extracted in 2 ml of 1 % HCl in methanol and quantified spectrophotometrically as A530–0.24A653 (Murray and Hackett 1991, Plant Physiol 97: 343–351) using a Biomate 3S UV–Visible Spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) on the same day. The bars represent the mean ± SD (n = 3). Fig. S5 The contents of Chl a and Chl b of Buxus microphylla ‘Wintergreen’ for the SUL, SSUL and SHL between fall (Oct. 20, 2014) and midwinter (Jan. 23, 2015). The extraction method was the same as that used in overwintering leaves during the period of 2012–2013 except that the contents of Chls were quantified on leaf area basis. Different lowercase letters indicate statistically significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) using Tukey’s HSD tests. The bars represent the mean ± SD (n = 3) (DOCX 1239 kb)

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Peng, J., Jiang, X., Jia, M. et al. Contrasting patterns of sun-red and shade-green leaves of Buxus microphylla in response to gradients of excess light during winter acclimation. Acta Physiol Plant 38, 254 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-016-2274-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-016-2274-8

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