Journal
PLANT SIGNALING & BEHAVIOR
Volume 5, Issue 6, Pages 655-662Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.4161/psb.5.6.11401
Keywords
competition; shade avoidance; hormones; cell wall; adaptive plasticity; photoreceptor; light
Categories
Funding
- Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research [863.06.01]
- Utrecht University
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Plants growing in dense vegetations compete with their neighbors for resources such as water, nutrients and light. The competition for light has been particularly well studied, both for its fitness consequences as well as the adaptive behaviors that plants display to win the battle for light interception. Aboveground, plants detect their competitors through photosensory cues, notably the red: far-red light ratio (R:FR). The R: FR is a very reliable indicator of future competition as it decreases in a plant-specific manner through red light absorption for photosynthesis and is sensed with the phytochrome photoreceptors. In addition, also blue light depletion is perceived for neighbor detection. As a response to these light signals plants display a suite of phenotypic traits defined as the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). The SAS helps to position the photosynthesizing leaves in the higher zones of a canopy where light conditions are more favorable. In this review we will discuss the physiological control mechanisms through which the photosensory signals are transduced into the adaptive phenotypic responses that make up the SAS. Using this mechanistic knowledge as a starting point, we will discuss how the SAS functions in the context of the complex multi-facetted environments, which plants usually grow in.
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