Exposed red (anthocyanic) leaves of Quercus coccifera display shade characteristics

Abstract

Young leaves in some plants are transiently red due to the presence of anthocyanins, which disappear upon maturation. We investigated the hypothesis that light attenuation by anthocyanins may lead to a shade acclimation of the photosynthetic machinery in red leaves. We took advantage of the intra-species variation in anthocyanin levels of young, exposed leaves of Quercus coccifera. Thus, photosynthetic and photoprotective characteristics were compared in young green and red leaves of the same age, sampled from the corresponding phenotypes occupying the same habitat. Red leaves displayed several shade attributes like thinner laminae, lower Chl a/b ratios and lower levels of the xanthophyll cycle components and β-carotene. In addition, although both leaf kinds had the same area based levels of chlorophylls, these pigments were excluded from the sub-epidermic anthocyanic cell layers, leading to a further reduction of effective mesophyll thickness and an increase in chlorophyll density. Accordingly, red leaves had higher absolute chlorophyll fluorescence signals. In spite of these apparent shade characters, red leaves were less prone to photoinhibition under mild laboratory conditions and displayed slightly but significantly higher PS II photochemical efficiencies at pre-dawn in the field. No differences in all the above measured parameters were found in mature green leaves of the two phenotypes. The results confirm the light acclimation hypothesis and are also compatible with a photoprotective function of anthocyanins.

Comparison of thermostability of PSII between the chromatic and green leaf cultivars of Amaranthus tricolor L.

“…Betalains are water-soluble irradiance, extreme temperatures, UV radiation, and mechanical injury as well as resistance to pathogen and herbivory attack (Dakora 1995, Winkel-Shirley 2001. Anthocyanins have been proposed as a pigment screen contributing to shielding the photosynthetic apparatus from excess light and UV-radiation (Manetas et al 2003); an antioxidant against harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Gould et al 2002, Neill andGould 2003), and an inhibitor of lipid peroxidation (Tsuda et al 1996). Our previous work suggested that anthocyanins play an important role in the protection against high temperatureand methyl viologen-induced (MV) photooxidation damage in leaves of Arabidopsis (Shao et al 2007(Shao et al , 2008.…”

Effect of transient accumulation of anthocyanin on leaf development and photoprotection of Fagopyrum dibotrys mutant

“…Red leaves have been reported to possess lower CO 2 assimilation and Chl a/b ratios, and they are generally thinner than green leaves (Manetas et al 2003, Kyparissis et al 2007). The maximum photosynthetic rate of red leaves was usually lower compared to green leaves (Lambers et al 1998).…”

“…Larger red leaf area in comparison to green leaf area may be the result of competition of anthocyanins with Chl for light absorption (Merzlyak et al 2008). Red leaf area spread may therefore be the result of compensative adaptation to capture greater amounts of sunlight.…”

“…This is consistent with the low P N . Based on previous reports (Merzlyak et al 2008) anthocyanins accumulated in red leaves possessed a protective function during leaf development. Certain studies have also shown high amounts of anthocyanins in young red leaves of Anthocephalus chinensis and Litsea pierrei possessing low diurnal photoinhibition (Cai et al 2005).…”

Immature leaves ofWeinmannia racemosaare more heat tolerant than mature leaves based on differences in chlorophyllafluorescence and solute leakage

“…1) as well as new chlorophyll synthesis (Hughes et al 2007). The decrease in chlorophyll a/b ratios during leaf expansion (IME compared with IM) has been observed in other species exhibiting green developing leaves (Hughes et al 2007, Manetas et al 2003 and was probably because the chloroplasts in young leaves have underdeveloped thylakoids (Choinski & Wise 1999) with higher amounts of PSII relative to PSI (Pettigrew & Vaughn 1998). The carotenoid/ chlorophyll ratio also decreased during leaf expansion (Table 1), consistent with most (Barker et al 1997;Hughes et al 2007;Krause et al 1995), although not all previous studies (Manetas et al 2002).…”