Special issue in honour of Prof. Reto J. Strasser - The JIP-test as a tool for forestry in times of climate change

Abstract

Replicate common gardens of Italian and Greek provenances of Quercus ilex, Q. pubescens, and Q. frainetto seedlings were established in 2017 in Italy, Greece, and Germany (here: also Q. robur) to assess their potential for plantations for future climate scenarios. The JIP-test was applied on saplings (2016) and in the summers of 2017-2019 to assess the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus. Seedlings from the nurseries differed in the tested JIP parameters from older plants in the field. Further, considerable inter-annual and between-sites variability of the parameters occurred. Q. pubescens revealed the most stable behavior across time and site, with the Greek provenance usually showing higher values of performance index and the probability of electron transport beyond QAthan the Italian provenance. In the German sites, Greek Q. pubescens revealed higher values of most of the tested JIP parameters than the local species, Q. robur. index on absorption basis; RC/ABS -density of active reaction centres; RIE -Frankfurt-Riedberg; SAN -Sant'Anatolia di Narco; SWA -Frankfurt-Schwanheim; ΔVIP -relative fluorescence increase between I and P step, i.e., indicator for the relative contribution of electron transport from the intersystem carriers to the electron end acceptors of PSI; φPo -quantum efficiency of reduction of QA; ΨEo -probability of electron transport beyond QA -.

Diurnal photosynthetic performance of two oak species from two provenances in a Mediterranean and a central European common garden

“…By disassembling the predawn values of PI abs into its components, not only φP0 but also RC/ABS and ψE0 were enhanced (Fig. 1S) in the SWA common garden, consistent with the results of Bantis et al (2020). Interestingly, solely the plants in SWA showed a significant decrease of φP0 predawn values (Fig.…”

“…Similarly, we detected no clear differences between the studied oak provenances. Better performance of the Greek vs. the Italian provenance, in line with Bantis et al (2020), was observed only in terms of PIabs (Fig. 2F), among all tested parameters.…”

“…PSII functionality was assessed by the JIP test with a portable fluorimeter measure with red light (Handy-PEA, Hansatech, King's Lynn, UK), using the 50 µs fluorescence level as F 0 according to Strasser et al (2000Strasser et al ( , 2004. Although recent studies showed a better fitting of earlier F0 values to extrapolated 'true' F0 (e.g., 20 μs; Padhi et al 2021), we chose to use 50 μs as F0 to enable comparability with previous investigations on the same oak species (e.g., Bantis et al 2019Bantis et al , 2020Bantis et al , 2021Koller et al 2020).…”

Environmental stress - what can we learn from chlorophyll a fluorescence analysis in woody plants? A review

“…Chlorophyll fluorescence has been successfully used in applied research to evaluate the effects of stressors on tree seedlings and small plants and to screen genotypes adapted to specific environmental conditions (Kuhlgert et al, 2016;Çicȩk et al, 2020;Dimitrova et al, 2020). ChlF analysis has been used by Bantis et al (2020); Bantis et al (2021); Bashir et al, (2021) and Pollastrini et al (2020) to select tree species for reforestation under climate change conditions by analysing the results of a system of community gardens across Europe. ChF is also applied in nurseries to determine young tree vigour and potential seedling performance (Perks et al, 2001;L'Hirondelle et al, 2007), stand quality (Binder et al, 1996), and winter hardiness (Fisker et al, 1995).…”

“…Chlorophyll fluorescence has been successfully used in applied research to evaluate the effects of stressors on tree seedlings and small plants and to screen genotypes adapted to specific environmental conditions ( Kuhlgert et al., 2016 ; Çiçek et al., 2020 ; Dimitrova et al., 2020 ). ChlF analysis has been used by Bantis et al. (2020) ; Bantis et al (2021) ; Bashir et al., (2021) and Pollastrini et al.…”