Alicia M. Cook, Enrico L. Rezende, Katherina Petrou, Andy Leigh
{"title":"Beyond a single temperature threshold: Applying a cumulative thermal stress framework to plant heat tolerance","authors":"Alicia M. Cook, Enrico L. Rezende, Katherina Petrou, Andy Leigh","doi":"10.1111/ele.14416","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Most plant thermal tolerance studies focus on single critical thresholds, which limit the capacity to generalise across studies and predict heat stress under natural conditions. In animals and microbes, thermal tolerance landscapes describe the more realistic, cumulative effects of temperature. We tested this in plants by measuring the decline in leaf photosynthetic efficiency (<i>F</i><sub>V</sub>/<i>F</i><sub>M</sub>) following a combination of temperatures and exposure times and then modelled these physiological indices alongside recorded environmental temperatures. We demonstrate that a general relationship between stressful temperatures and exposure durations can be effectively employed to quantify and compare heat tolerance within and across plant species and over time. Importantly, we show how <i>F</i><sub>V</sub>/<i>F</i><sub>M</sub> curves translate to plants under natural conditions, suggesting that environmental temperatures often impair photosynthetic function. Our findings provide more robust descriptors of heat tolerance in plants and suggest that heat tolerance in disparate groups of organisms can be studied with a single predictive framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":161,"journal":{"name":"Ecology Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.14416","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecology Letters","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.14416","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Most plant thermal tolerance studies focus on single critical thresholds, which limit the capacity to generalise across studies and predict heat stress under natural conditions. In animals and microbes, thermal tolerance landscapes describe the more realistic, cumulative effects of temperature. We tested this in plants by measuring the decline in leaf photosynthetic efficiency (FV/FM) following a combination of temperatures and exposure times and then modelled these physiological indices alongside recorded environmental temperatures. We demonstrate that a general relationship between stressful temperatures and exposure durations can be effectively employed to quantify and compare heat tolerance within and across plant species and over time. Importantly, we show how FV/FM curves translate to plants under natural conditions, suggesting that environmental temperatures often impair photosynthetic function. Our findings provide more robust descriptors of heat tolerance in plants and suggest that heat tolerance in disparate groups of organisms can be studied with a single predictive framework.
期刊介绍:
Ecology Letters serves as a platform for the rapid publication of innovative research in ecology. It considers manuscripts across all taxa, biomes, and geographic regions, prioritizing papers that investigate clearly stated hypotheses. The journal publishes concise papers of high originality and general interest, contributing to new developments in ecology. Purely descriptive papers and those that only confirm or extend previous results are discouraged.