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Seasonal changes in light and temperature affect the balance between light harvesting and light utilisation components of photosynthesis in an evergreen understory shrub

Oecologia volume 143, Article number: 501 (2005) Cite this article

Abstract

In a temperate climate, evergreen species in the understory are exposed to large changes in photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and temperature over the year. We determined the photosynthetic traits of leaves of an evergreen understory shrub Aucuba japonica at three sites at monthly intervals: understorys of a deciduous forest; an evergreen forest; and a gap in a mixed forest. This set up enabled us to separate the effects of seasonal change in PPFD and temperature on photosynthetic acclimation under natural conditions. The effects of PPFD and temperature were analysed by simple and multiple regression analyses. The amounts of light utilisation components (LU), represented by nitrogen and rubisco contents per area, were higher in winter, when temperature was low and PPFD was high. The LU relative to the amount of light harvesting components (LH), represented by chlorophyll a/b and rubisco/chlorophyll ratios, and the inverse of chlorophyll/nitrogen ratio were also higher in winter. We quantified the effects of PPFD and temperature on the LU and LH components. Across sites PPFD had stronger effects than air temperature, while within a site temperature had stronger effects on photosynthetic acclimation. We concluded that the photosynthetic apparatus is strongly affected by the prevailing PPFD at the time of leaf development. Within a given light regime, however, plants acclimated by increasing LU relative to LH primarily in response to temperature and to a lesser extent to PPFD.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Marinus Werger, Niels Anten and three anonymous reviewers for useful comments and Riichi Oguchi and Yusuke Onoda and other members of the Functional Ecology Laboratory of Tohoku University for help during the study. The Botanical Garden of Tohoku University gave us the opportunity to conduct our study in her beautiful forest. This study was supported by grants from the Dutch Schure-Beijrinck-Popping-fund, VSB-fund and Funke-fund to OM. It was also supported by an AIEJ Short-term student exchange promotion scholarship, a MEXT scholarship and partly by a grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Government of Japan.

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Affiliations

  1. Graduate school of life sciences, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Onno Muller, Kouki Hikosaka & Tadaki Hirose

  2. Department of Plant Ecology, Utrecht University, PO Box 800.84, 3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Onno Muller

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  1. Onno Muller
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  2. Kouki Hikosaka
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  3. Tadaki Hirose
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Correspondence to Onno Muller.

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Communicated by Christian Koerner

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Muller, O., Hikosaka, K. & Hirose, T. Seasonal changes in light and temperature affect the balance between light harvesting and light utilisation components of photosynthesis in an evergreen understory shrub. Oecologia 143, 501 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-005-0024-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-005-0024-5

Keywords

  • Seasonality
  • Aucuba japonica
  • Leaf nitrogen
  • Rubisco
  • Chlorophyll