High-temperature tolerance of a tropical tree, Ficus insipida: methodological reassessment and climate change considerations
G. Heinrich Krause A B C , Klaus Winter A , Barbara Krause A , Peter Jahns B , Milton García A , Jorge Aranda A and Aurelio Virgo AA Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado Postal 0843-03092, Panama, Republic of Panama.
B Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
C Corresponding author. Email: ghkrause@uni-duesseldorf.de
Functional Plant Biology 37(9) 890-900 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP10034
Submitted: 17 February 2010 Accepted: 3 June 2010 Published: 24 August 2010
Abstract
In view of anthropogenic global warming, heat tolerance of a neotropical pioneer tree, Ficus insipida Willd., was determined. Sections of sun leaves from a mature tree and from seedlings cultivated at ambient and elevated temperatures were heated to 42–53°C. Leaves from a late-successional tree species, Virola sebifera Aubl., were also studied. Widely used chlorophyll a fluorescence methods based on heat-induced rise of initial fluorescence emission, Fo, and decrease in the ratio of variable to maximum fluorescence, Fv/Fm, were reassessed. Fv/Fm determined 24 h after heat treatment was the fluorescence parameter most suitable to assess the lethal temperature causing permanent tissue damage. Thermo-tolerance was underestimated when Fo and Fv/Fm were recorded immediately after the heat treatment. The limit of thermo-tolerance was between 50 and 53°C, only a few °C above peak leaf temperatures measured in situ. The absence of seasonal changes in thermo-tolerance and only marginal increases in thermo-tolerance of plants grown under elevated temperatures suggest little capacity for further heat acclimation. Heat-stress experiments with intact potted seedlings also revealed irreversible leaf damage at 51–53°C, but plants survived and developed new leaves during post-culture.
Additional keywords: biomass, growth, photosynthetic pigments, tropical forest, xanthophyll cycle.
Acknowledgements
We thank Maria Graf for assistance in photosynthetic pigment analysis, Sergio dos Santos for providing meteorological data and Elisabeth King for reading the manuscript. This study was supported by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
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