Changes in photosynthetic pigment composition and absorbed energy allocation during salt stress and CAM induction in Mesembryanthemum crystallinum
David H. Barker A C , Jeff Marszalek D , Jeff F. Zimpfer A and William W. Adams III BA Department of Biological Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89 154-4004, USA.
B Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80 309-0334, USA.
C Corresponding author; email: barkerd@unlv.nevada.edu
D Deceased
Functional Plant Biology 31(8) 781-787 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP04019
Submitted: 22 January 2004 Accepted: 13 May 2004 Published: 23 August 2004
Abstract
Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L. undergoes a transition from the C3 photosynthetic pathway to crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) in response to increasing salinity. As a consequence, growth is greatly reduced and less light energy is utilised in carbon fixation, leading to an increase in dissipation of thermal energy to remove potentially dangerous excess excitation energy. The pigment composition of plants grown for 4 weeks at 20 mm (low) and 400 mm (high) NaCl was sampled, and photochemical performance, tissue acidity and growth were sampled at 2 and 4 weeks. High-salt-grown plants, which switched to CAM, accumulated only 25% of the fresh weight of low-salt-grown plants, which maintained C3 photosynthesis. Predawn Fv / Fm and de-epoxidation of violaxanthin [(A + Z) / (V + A + Z)] was similar between plants after 2 and 4 weeks, revealing no sustained depression in PSII efficiency under the high-salt treatment. However, at midday under high photosynthetic photon flux densities (PPFD) high-salt plants displayed lower PSII efficiency, higher (A + Z) / (V + A + Z) and greater allocation of energy to thermal dissipation over photochemistry than low-salt plants. Pigment contents were similar between treatments for the first 3 weeks, but after 4 weeks high-salt plants had accumulated significantly less chlorophyll and lutein than low-salt plants. However, V + A + Z content did not differ. High-salt treatment, leading to CAM photosynthesis and substantial reduction in growth, was associated with increased allocation of energy to xanthophyll cycle-dependent energy dissipation at high light and adjustment of thylakoid pigment composition.
Keywords: crassulacean acid metabolism, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, salinity, thermal energy dissipation, xanthophyll cycle, zeaxanthin.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Barbara Demmig-Adams, William E. Friedman and Stanley D. Smith for their comments during preparation of this manuscript. We also thank three reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a research award from the Department of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, to DHB, a grant from the National Science Foundation, award IBN-9207653, to William W. Adams and Barbara Demmig-Adams and a fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to Barbara Demmig-Adams.
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