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Does leaf optical absorbance reflect the polyphenol content of alpine plants along an elevational gradient?

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Abstract

Phenolic compounds play important ecological roles in alpine plants such as offering efficient UV protection at high level of incident sunlight. Methods to study those compounds are limited, as they require sophisticated analytical tools and are time-consuming. An alternative and portable device—Dualex©—has been recently developed to estimate the plant epidermal flavonoids by fluorescence sensing. Here, we assessed if the Dualex device accurately estimates the phenolic contents of three alpine plant species along an elevational gradient and be an alternative to the commonly used chemical methods. We characterized their leaf epidermal absorbance measured by the Dualex device, total phenol content assessed by the Folin–Ciocalteu assay and total flavonoid content estimated by high-performance liquid chromatography. The results showed that leaf epidermal absorbance was slightly positively correlated to total phenols for Rhododendron ferrugineum and Dryas octopetala, but not for Vaccinium myrtillus and to total flavonoids for the first species, but not for the two others. The leaf epidermal absorbance estimated by the Dualex device is not an accurate and universal predictor of total phenols or total flavonoid contents for alpine plant species. The limitations of this optical method could be mainly explained by the high intraspecific variability of plant chemical composition in heterogeneous environmental conditions met in alpine areas. We thus recommend a cautious use of this device to avoid misinterpretations.

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Acknowledgments

This work is dedicated to the memory of Serge Aubert, director of the Station Alpine Joseph Fourier. The authors thank the Zone Atelier Alpes for the acquisition of the Dualex device and the Station Alpine Joseph Fourier for logistic support. The authors thank one anonymous reviewer and C. Körner for their valuable comments and G. Yannic for his help in enhancing the quality of the manuscript.

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  1. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS UMR 5553, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Bâtiment Belledonne Ouest, 73376, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    Tiphaine Lefebvre, Annie Millery-Vigues & Christiane Gallet

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  1. Tiphaine Lefebvre
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  2. Annie Millery-Vigues
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  3. Christiane Gallet
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Correspondence to Tiphaine Lefebvre.

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Supplementary material 1

Fig. S1 Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the leaf flavonoid composition (i.e., peaks detected by HPLC at 354 nm) of Dryas octopetala (Do), Rhododendron ferrugineum (Rf) and Vaccinium myrtillus (Vm).The first axis explains 24% of the variation and the second 13%. Points represent plants grouped by species with ellipses. Fig. S2 Adaxial leaf epidermal absorbance (LEA) in function of abaxial LEA for Dryas octopetala (Do), Rhododendron ferrugineum (Rf) and Vaccinium myrtillus (Vm). Regression lines are drawn when correlations are significant (p value<0.05). Fig. S3 Relationship between total phenols concentration expressed in mg of gallic acid equivalent per gram of dry mass and total flavonoids as the total area of flavonoid peaks determined by HPLC of Dryas octopetala (Do), Rhododendron ferrugineum (Rf) and Vaccinium myrtillus (Vm). Regression lines are drawn when p values<0.05, according to the values fitted by the mixed-effects model. Table S1 Peaks separated by HPLC in Dryas octopetala (Do), Rhododendron ferrugineum (Rf) and Vaccinium myrtillus (Vm) and their retention times. The p value and sign of correlation between the compound area (at 354 nm) and the LEA (calculated separately for each species) are given and in bold when significant (PDF 122 kb)

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Lefebvre, T., Millery-Vigues, A. & Gallet, C. Does leaf optical absorbance reflect the polyphenol content of alpine plants along an elevational gradient?. Alp Botany 126, 177–185 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00035-016-0167-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00035-016-0167-5

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