Community-wide consequences of variation in photoprotective physiology among prairie plants
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 efficiencyAbbreviations
- 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
Supplementary material
References
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