Tradescantia‐based models: a powerful looking glass for investigation of photoacclimation and photoadaptation in plants

Abstract

Here, we summarize diverse evidence from species that belong to the genus Tradescantia, which we propose as handy and versatile models for studies of the ecology of photosynthesis and the mechanisms of photoacclimation in higher plants. A valuable feature of this genus is the amazingly broad range of ecological niches occupied by its species: from shady understory of tropical rainforest to deserts and semideserts. The former habitats demand shade tolerance (e.g. that featured by Tradescantia fluminensis), whereas the latter requires succulence and/or high light stress tolerance (evident in e.g. Tradescantia navicularis). At the same time, the acclimative traits of Tradescantia species seem quite moderate at first glance. Certainly, their basic principles of acclimation seem to differ in some aspects from the ones typical for most of other higher plants. This review presents a systematic analysis of irradiance responses of Tradescantia species studied on different timescales. The specifics of Tradescantia responses to irradiance make the plants of this genus a ‘multitool’ for studies in this field. Similarity of irradiance acclimation patterns is a characteristic feature in the ecologically contrasting Tradescantia species, which may inspire further insights into physiology and evolution of plants.

Light signals generated by vegetation shade facilitate acclimation to low light in shade-avoider plants

“…In terms of light quantity, the shade-avoider At showed a lower capacity to acclimate to reduced photosynthetically active radiation (low PAR) but a higher capacity to acclimate to intense light (high PAR) compared to the shade-tolerant Ch (Molina-Contreras et al, 2019). A similar physiological behavior has been described for shade-avoider and shade-tolerant species of the genus Tradescantia (Benkov et al, 2019), a model to study the ecology of photosynthesis and the mechanisms of photoacclimation in plants (Ptushenko and Ptushenko, 2019). The possible connections between low R:FR signaling and photoacclimation responses in plants remain, however, virtually unknown.…”

“…the ability of plants to adjust photosynthesis to changes in the incident light with specific phenotypic changes) also diverges. Variation of photoacclimation responses among species on day-to-week time scale has been associated to two main strategies (Murchie and Horton, 1997;Ptushenko and Ptushenko, 2019). The first one consists of an alteration of photosynthetic pigment content, which positively corresponds with photosynthetic capacity.…”

Molecular mechanisms of shade tolerance in plants

“…Conversely, the shade‐avoiding A. thaliana showed a higher capacity to acclimate to intense light (high PAR) compared with the shade‐tolerant C. hirsuta (Molina‐Contreras et al ., 2019; Morelli et al ., 2021). A similar physiological behavior has been described for shade‐avoiding and shade‐tolerant species of the genus Tradescantia , a group of plants used to study the ecology of photosynthesis and the mechanisms of photoacclimation in plants (Benkov et al ., 2019; Ptushenko & Ptushenko, 2019; Fig. 2a).…”

Photosynthesis—European Congress on Photosynthesis Research

“…The articles in this Special Issue range from original articles applying sophisticated biophysical methods (Yakovlev et al , Sipka et al , Capone et al ) and theoretical and experimental consideration on the water‐splitting complex (Capone et al 2019, Yamaguchi et al , Chatterjee et al ) and photosystem I (Santabarbara et al ) to more integrated aspects of photosynthesis research (Buezo et al , Hamdani et al , Ptushenko and Ptushenko , Hernández‐Prieto et al , Krieger‐Liszkay et al ). A number of articles treat regulatory aspects of photosystem II (Shevela et al ), the plastoquinone pool (Borisova‐Mubarakshina et al ), cytochrome c (Bernal‐Bayard et al ), redox regulation (Nikkanen et al ), photoacclimation (Hu et al ) and photorespiration (García‐Caledrón et al ).…”