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The temperature response of mesophyll conductance, and its component conductances, varies between species and genotypes

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Abstract

The temperature response of mesophyll conductance to CO2 diffusion (gm) has been shown to vary considerably between species but remains poorly understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that increases in chloroplast surface area with increasing temperature, due to the formation of chloroplast protrusions, caused observed positive responses of gm to temperature. We found no evidence of chloroplast protrusions. Using simultaneous measurements of carbon and oxygen isotope discrimination during photosynthesis to separate total gm (gm13) into cell wall and plasma membrane conductance (gm18) and chloroplast membrane conductance (gcm) components, we explored the temperature response in genotypes of soybean and barley, and sunflower plants grown at differing CO2 concentrations. Differences in the temperature sensitivity of gm18 were found between genotypes and between plants grown at differing CO2 concentration but did not relate to measured anatomical features such as chloroplast surface area or cell wall thickness. The closest fit of modelled gm13 to estimated values was found when cell wall thickness was allowed to decline at higher temperatures and transpiration rates, but it remains to be tested if this decline is realistic. The temperature response of gcm (calculated from the difference between 1/gm13 and 1/gm18) varied between barley genotypes, and was best fitted by an optimal response in sunflower. Taken together, these results indicate that gm is a highly complex trait with unpredictable sensitivity to temperature that varies between species, between genotypes within a single species, with growth environment, between replicate leaves, and even with age for an individual leaf.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council and the Grains Research and Development Corporation through the Industrial Transformation Research Centre, Legumes for Sustainable Agriculture, DP110104269, and US00056. The authors acknowledge the facilities, and the scientific and technical assistance, of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility at Sydney Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney. We thank Svetlana Ryazanova for technical assistance with gas exchange, and Elinor Goodman and Erin Lockhart for microscopy imaging and analysis. We also thank Dr Nerea Ubierna and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

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  1. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, 380 Werombi Road, Brownlow Hill, NSW, 2570, Australia

    Arjina Shrestha, Xin Song & Margaret M. Barbour

  2. School of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, 3688 Nanhai Ave, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518060, China

    Xin Song

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  1. Arjina Shrestha
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Shrestha, A., Song, X. & Barbour, M.M. The temperature response of mesophyll conductance, and its component conductances, varies between species and genotypes. Photosynth Res 141, 65–82 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-019-00622-z

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