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Photosynthetica

, Volume 56, Issue 1, pp 455–467 | Cite as

Community-wide consequences of variation in photoprotective physiology among prairie plants

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Abstract

Photoprotective pigments, like those involved in the xanthophyll cycle, help plants avoid oxidative damage caused by excess radiation. This study aims to characterize a spectrum of strategies used to cope with light stress by a diverse group of prairie plants at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (East Bethel, MN). We find that concentrations of photosynthetic and photoprotective pigments are highly correlated with one another and with other physiological traits across species and over time, and tend to be phylogenetically conserved. During a period of water limitation, plots dominated by species with constitutively low pigment concentrations showed a greater decline in mean reflectance and photochemical reflectance index, a reflectance-based indicator of photoprotective physiology, possibly due to alterations in canopy structure. Our findings suggest two contrasting strategies for withstanding light stress: (1) Using photoprotective pigments to dissipate excess energy, and (2) altering canopy structure to minimize absorbance of excess radiation.

Additional key words

drought light-use efficiency phenology photoinhibition trait covariance water-use efficiency 

Abbreviations

Chl

total chlorophyll (a + b) concentration

CWM

community-weighted mean

DPS

xanthophyll de-epoxidation state

ETR

electron transport rate

fAPAR

fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation

Fv/Fm

maximal quantum yield of PSII photochemistry

LUE

light-use efficiency

ML

maximum likelihood

NDVI

normalized difference vegetation index

NIR

near-infrared light

NPQ

nonphotochemical quenching

PC

principal component

PCA

principal component analysis

PRI

photochemical reflectance index

V+A+Z

xanthophyll pool size

VIS

visible light

WUEi

intrinsic water-use efficiency

ρn

reflectance at wavelength n

ΦPSII

effective quantum yield of PSII photochemistry

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.

Authors and Affiliations

  • S. Kothari
    • 1
  • J. Cavender-Bares
    • 1
    • 2
  • K. Bitan
    • 2
  • A. S. Verhoeven
    • 3
  • R. Wang
    • 4
  • R. A. Montgomery
    • 5
  • J. A. Gamon
    • 4
    • 6
    • 7
  1. 1.Plant Biological Sciences ProgramUniversity of MinnesotaSaint PaulUSA
  2. 2.Department of Ecology, Evolution and BehaviorUniversity of MinnesotaSaint PaulUSA
  3. 3.Department of BiologyUniversity of St. ThomasSaint PaulUSA
  4. 4.Department of Earth and Atmospheric SciencesUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonCanada
  5. 5.Department of Forest ResourcesUniversity of MinnesotaSt. PaulUSA
  6. 6.Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies, School of Natural ResourcesUniversity of Nebraska–LincolnLincolnUSA
  7. 7.Department of Biological SciencesUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonCanada

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