An Intraspecific Negative Correlation Between the Repair Capacity of Photoinhibition of Cold Acclimated Plants and the Habitat Temperature

Both the activity of photosynthesis and the repair of damaged photosystems decline in cold environments, which may increase the extent of the damage of photosynthetic machinery by light, namely photoinhibition. We hypothesized that plants in colder habitats may possess greater tolerance to photoinhibition, especially in low-temperature conditions. We measured the rate of photoinhibition, rate of photoinhibition repair and other thylakoid activities in cold environments using 298 Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes and studied the relationships among the indicators of photoinhibition tolerance and climatic data of the habitat of each ecotype. The plants acclimated to cold conditions (12°C) for 3 days showed a negative correlation between the rate of photoinhibition repair at 5°C and the mean annual temperature of habitats, although we could not see this correlation with the control plants grown at 22°C. This result would indicate that the acclimation capacity of photoinhibition tolerance in cold conditions can affect the distribution of plants, especially in colder regions.