Although cold acclimation is a key process in plants from temperate climates, the mechanisms sensing low temperature remain obscure. Here, we show that the accumulation of the organic acid fumaric acid, mediated by the cytosolic fumarase FUM2, is essential for cold acclimation of metabolism in the cold-tolerant model species Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). A nontargeted metabolomic approach, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, identifies fumarate as a key component of the cold response in this species. Plants of T-DNA insertion mutants, lacking FUM2, show marked differences in their response to cold, with contrasting responses both in terms of metabolite concentrations and gene expression. The fum2 plants accumulated higher concentrations of phosphorylated sugar intermediates and of starch and malate. Transcripts for proteins involved in photosynthesis were markedly down-regulated in fum2.2 but not in wild-type Columbia-0. Plants of fum2 show a complete loss of the ability to acclimate photosynthesis to low temperature. We conclude that fumarate accumulation plays an essential role in low temperature sensing in Arabidopsis, either indirectly modulating metabolic or redox signals or possibly being itself directly involved in cold sensing.

Mature leaves of plants transferred from low to high light typically increase their photosynthetic capacity. In A rabidopsis thaliana, this dynamic acclimation requires expression of GPT2, a glucose 6‐phosphate/phosphate translocator. Here, we examine the impact of GPT2 on leaf metabolism and photosynthesis. Plants of wild type and of a GPT2 knockout (gpt2.2) grown under low light achieved the same photosynthetic rate despite having different metabolic and transcriptomic strategies. Immediately upon transfer to high light, gpt2.2 plants showed a higher rate of photosynthesis than wild‐type plants (35%); however, over subsequent days, wild‐type plants acclimated photosynthetic capacity, increasing the photosynthesis rate by 100% after 7 d. Wild‐type plants accumulated more starch than gpt2.2 plants throughout acclimation. We suggest that GPT2 activity results in the net import of glucose 6‐phosphate from cytosol to chloroplast, increasing starch synthesis. There was clear acclimation of metabolism, with short‐term changes typically being reversed as plants acclimated. Distinct responses to light were observed in wild‐type and gpt2.2 leaves. Significantly higher levels of sugar phosphates were observed in gpt2.2. We suggest that GPT2 alters the distribution of metabolites between compartments and that this plays an essential role in allowing the cell to interpret environmental signals.

Soil property and class maps for the continent of Africa were so far only available at very generalised scales, with many countries not mapped at all. Thanks to an increasing quantity and availability of soil samples collected at field point locations by various government and/or NGO funded projects, it is now possible to produce detailed pan-African maps of soil nutrients, including micro-nutrients at fine spatial resolutions. In this paper we describe production of a 30 m resolution Soil Information System of the African continent using, to date, the most comprehensive compilation of soil samples ($$N \approx 150,000$$ N ≈ 150 , 000 ) and Earth Observation data. We produced predictions for soil pH, organic carbon (C) and total nitrogen (N), total carbon, effective Cation Exchange Capacity (eCEC), extractable—phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sulfur (S), sodium (Na), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn)—silt, clay and sand, stone content, bulk density and depth to bedrock, at three depths (0, 20 and 50 cm) and using 2-scale 3D Ensemble Machine Learning framework implemented in the (Machine Learning in ) package. As covariate layers we used 250 m resolution (MODIS, PROBA-V and SM2RAIN products), and 30 m resolution (Sentinel-2, Landsat and DTM derivatives) images. Our fivefold spatial Cross-Validation results showed varying accuracy levels ranging from the best performing soil pH (CCC = 0.900) to more poorly predictable extractable phosphorus (CCC = 0.654) and sulphur (CCC = 0.708) and depth to bedrock. Sentinel-2 bands SWIR (B11, B12), NIR (B09, B8A), Landsat SWIR bands, and vertical depth derived from 30 m resolution DTM, were the overall most important 30 m resolution covariates. Climatic data images—SM2RAIN, bioclimatic variables and MODIS Land Surface Temperature—however, remained as the overall most important variables for predicting soil chemical variables at continental scale. This publicly available 30-m Soil Information System of Africa aims at supporting numerous applications, including soil and fertilizer policies and investments, agronomic advice to close yield gaps, environmental programs, or targeting of nutrition interventions.

Leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana transferred from low to high light increase their capacity for photosynthesis, a process of dynamic acclimation. A mutant, gpt2, lacking a chloroplast glucose-6-phosphate/phosphate translocator, is deficient in its ability to acclimate to increased light. Here, we have used a label-free proteomics approach, to perform relative quantitation of 1993 proteins from Arabidopsis wild type and gpt2 leaves exposed to increased light. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD006598. Acclimation to light is shown to involve increases in electron transport and carbon metabolism but no change in the abundance of photosynthetic reaction centers. The gpt2 mutant shows a similar increase in total protein content to wild type but differences in the extent of change of certain proteins, including in the relative abundance of the cytochrome b6f complex and plastocyanin, the thylakoid ATPase and selected Benson-Calvin cycle enzymes. Changes in leaf metabolite content as plants acclimate can be explained by changes in the abundance of enzymes involved in metabolism, which were reduced in gpt2 in some cases. Plants of gpt2 invest more in stress-related proteins, suggesting that their reduced ability to acclimate photosynthetic capacity results in increased stress.

Photosynthesis is especially sensitive to environmental conditions, and the composition of the photosynthetic apparatus can be modulated in response to environmental change, a process termed photosynthetic acclimation. Previously, we identified a role for a cytosolic fumarase, FUM2 in acclimation to low temperature in Arabidopsis thaliana. Mutant lines lacking FUM2 were unable to acclimate their photosynthetic apparatus to cold. Here, using gas exchange measurements and metabolite assays of acclimating and non-acclimating plants, we show that acclimation to low temperature results in a change in the distribution of photosynthetically fixed carbon to different storage pools during the day. Proteomic analysis of wild-type Col-0 Arabidopsis and of a fum2 mutant, which was unable to acclimate to cold, indicates that extensive changes occurring in response to cold are affected in the mutant. Metabolic and proteomic data were used to parameterize metabolic models. Using an approach called flux sampling, we show how the relative export of triose phosphate and 3-phosphoglycerate provides a signal of the chloroplast redox state that could underlie photosynthetic acclimation to cold.

Changing climate means that there will be more episodes of drought, especially in arid regions. Drought stress is an important environmental factor that reduces crop productivity. Despite the vast amount of literature on drought stress in plants, there are still many uncertainties concerning the molecular responses under water deficit. In particular, if we wish to breed plants that are able to tolerate stress, identifying novel traits that contribute to this is desirable. In this study, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to investigate the response of maize to progressive drought. The objective was to determine whether FTIR spectroscopy is a technique that might be used in monitoring the molecular processes involved in drought responses in plants. Maize seeds were grown for three weeks in a controlled environment before drought was imposed by withdrawing water for up to 12 days. Principal component-discriminant function analysis (PC-DFA) indicated that water deficit elicited changes in the FTIR spectra within the wavenumber ranges of 3050 to 2800, 1750 to 1250 and 1250 to 900 cm -1 . With water deficit, the intensities of the absorption bands were reduced. PC-DFA loadings confirmed that the signals to the changes were lipids, amides and carbohydrates, respectively. This work shows that FTIR spectroscopy can provide valuable insights into drought responses of plants and maybe useful for identifying novel drought tolerance traits.

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Chloroplasts, the site of the primary reactions of photosynthesis, are organelles capable of independent protein synthesis, but which depend on the nucleus for most polypeptides. The process of photosynthesis is especially sensitive to environmental conditions and the composition of the photosynthetic apparatus can be modulated in response to environmental change. This acclimation process requires close communication between chloroplast and nucleus. Here we present evidence that the form in which carbon is exported from the chloroplast encodes information about the metabolic status of the photosynthetic apparatus which in turn controls photosynthetic acclimation.