Light-induced systemic regulation of photosynthesis in primary and trifoliate leaves of Phaseolus vulgaris: effects of photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) versus spectrum

The objectives of this work using Phaseolus vulgaris were to examine whether the light spectrum incident on mature primary leaves (PLs) is related to leaf-to-leaf systemic regulation of developing trifoliate leaves (TLs) in photosynthetic characteristics, and to investigate the relative importance of spectrum and photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) in light-induced systemic regulation. Systemic regulation was induced by altering PPFD and the spectrum of light incident on PLs using a shading treatment and lighting treatments including either white, blue, green or red light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Photosynthetic characteristics were evaluated by measuring the light-limited and light-saturated net photosynthetic rates and the amounts of nitrogen (N), chlorophyll (Chl) and ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco; EC 4.1.1.39). Shading treatment on PLs decreased the amounts of N, Chl and Rubisco of TLs and tended to decrease the photosynthetic rates. However, we observed no systemic effects induced by the light spectrum on PLs in this study, except that a higher amount of Rubisco of TLs was observed when the PLs were irradiated with blue LEDs. Our results imply that photoreceptors in mature leaves have little influence on photosynthetic rates and amounts of N and Chl of developing leaves through systemic regulation, although the possibility of the action of blue light irradiation on the amount of Rubisco cannot be ruled out. Based on these results, we concluded that the light spectrum incident on mature leaves has little systemic effect on developing leaves in terms of photosynthetic characteristics and that the light-induced systemic regulation was largely accounted for by PPFD.