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Population Biology |
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912 USA
ABSTRACT
Forest understory plants often respond less intensely to reduced ratios of red to far red (R : FR) light, an important signal of foliage shade, than conspecific or congeneric plants from open-canopy sites. Reduced responsiveness to low R : FR in plants from closed-canopy sites could be caused by two physiological mechanisms. First, closed-canopy plants could have less sensitive shade-avoidance responses to low R : FR. Second, the high irradiance response to FR (FR-HIR), which allows seedling de-etiolation under low R : FR, might be stronger or persist longer after de-etiolation in closed-canopy plants, thus counteracting shade-avoidance responses to low R : FR. These hypotheses were tested using diodes that emit red and far-red light to distinguish the responses to altered R : FR of genotypes of Impatiens capensis collected from a pair of open- and closed-canopy populations that have previously been shown to differ in sensitivity to R : FR. Genotypes from the open-canopy environment exhibited typical shade-avoidance responses, elongating in response to supplemental FR. However, genotypes from the closed-canopy environment responded to supplemental FR by elongating less than under ambient control conditions, indicating a persistent FR-HIR. Thus, the observed population differentiation in response to low R : FR may be linked to population differences in FR-HIR.
Key Words: Arabidopsis ecotypic differentiation high irradiance response light-emitting diodes Nicotiana phytochrome plasticity shade-avoidance syndrome
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