Cold acclimation in silver birch (Betula pendula). Development of freezing tolerance in different tissues and climatic ecotypes

Abstract

A number of environmental cues including short day photoperiod (SD) and low temperature (LT) are known to interact in triggering growth cessation, cold acclimation and other adaptive responses in temperate-zone tree species. Proper timing of these responses is particularly important for survival of trees in the boreal and subarctic regions. Therefore, we used a northern tree species, silver birch (Betula pendula Roth) as an experimental model to investigate the effect of SD and LT on development of freezing tolerance and on levels of endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) in short-term experiments under controlled conditions. We characterized differences in SD and LT-induced cold acclimation between three different climatic ecotypes from southern, central and northern habitats. The results demonstrated that cold acclimation was rapidly triggered by exposing the plants to SD or LT, and that a combination of the different treatments had an additive

Clinal Variation in phyB2, a Candidate Gene for Day-Length-Induced Growth Cessation and Bud Set, Across a Latitudinal Gradient in European Aspen (Populus tremula)

“…For instance, trees that were late setting buds and that grew late into the season suffered both greater fall frost damage and lower winter survival in an F 2 population of a P. trichocarpa 3 P. deltoides cross . Similar observations have been made in several other forest trees [Betula (Li et al 2002) and conifers (Clapham et al 2001)]. …”

“…Dormancy is a prerequisite for the development of cold hardiness and the developmental processes leading up to complete endodormancy take several weeks to complete, thereby reducing the length of the season during which active growth can take place (Horvath et al 2003;Howe et al 2003). Although several factors play a role, evidence suggests that the most important environmental cues regulating the initiation of dormancy in perennial plants are a shortening of the photoperiod and exposure to extended periods of low, nonfreezing temperatures (Howe et al 1995;Li et al 2002;Horvath et al 2003).…”

Biotechnological implications from abscisic acid (ABA) roles in cold stress and leaf senescence as an important signal for improving plant sustainable survival under abiotic-stressed conditions

“…In the field, if the tree does not reach an adequate level of cold hardiness before the first of autumn, it will be damaged. Previous reports have revealed that in woody plants, low temperature can increase the endogenous ABA levels (Welling et al, 1997;Baldwin et al, 1997;Li et al, 2002), and the cold stimulus can be substituted by exogenous ABA, resulting in an increase in freezing tolerance at normal growth temperatures (Li et al, 2003a). On the other hand, ABA could be also related to bud dormancy in trees, which is critical for over-wintering to woody plants.…”

“…Nowadays, research in ABA signaling has been focused largely on gene expression. A wide variety of genes are ABA regulated at the transcriptional level, including genes involved in stress defense, and senescence responses, secondary metabolism and cell wall biosynthesis, Amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, fatty acid and lipid metabolism and transport, transcript regulation, and signal transduction (Li et al, 2002). For incidence, transcriptome analyses have shown that ABA dramatically alters genomic expression in Arabidopsis thaliana (Hoth et al, 2002;Seki et al, 2002).…”

Seasonal Variations in Total Antioxidant Capacity and Total Phenolics Content of Leaves of <i>Phyllostachys<i> Taxa Using Different Extraction Methods

“…During the cold-acclimation of plants an accumulation of secondary metabolites, including TP was reported by Cansev et al (2012) and Pennycooke et al (2005). Our interesting results with P. aureosulcata f. aureocaulis in which TP values immediately rose after exposure to low temperatures in October, while the other taxa produced high values only later in November, could be explained by the different freeze tolerance of these species, P. aureosulcata being the most freeze tolerant of the four taxa (Ohrnberger, 2002), and also by possible inter/intraspecific differences in responsiveness to low temperature exposure during cold-acclimation as reported for other plants (Li et al, 2002;Li et al, 2005;Guárdia et al, 2013). Previous available studies on bamboos have not attempted to find reasons for seasonal changes in TP, only defined the period of the year optimal for harvest of bamboo leaves rich in TP.…”