Leaf ontogeny strongly influences photosynthetic tolerance to drought and high temperature in Gossypium hirsutum.

Temperature and drought are major abiotic limitations to crop productivity worldwide. While abiotic stress physiology research has focused primarily on fully expanded leaves, no studies have investigated photosynthetic tolerance to concurrent drought and high temperature during leaf ontogeny. To address this, Gossypium hirsutum plants were exposed to five irrigation treatments, and two different leaf stages were sampled on three dates during an abnormally dry summer.

Changes during leaf expansion of ΦPSII temperature optima in Gossypium hirsutum are associated with the degree of fatty acid lipid saturation.

In this project, we hypothesize that cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) leaf temperature and the responses of leaf photosynthesis to temperature will change as the leaves expand and that differences between young and mature leaves will be associated with the proportion of saturated fatty acids in thylakoid and other membrane lipids. To that end, we studied main stem leaves obtained from plants growing in a temperature controlled greenhouse and at different times in the field season. We found that young leaves (∼5d old) had higher mid day temperatures, lower stomatal conductance and higher thermal optima as measured by ΦPSII temperature curves than did more mature leaves (∼13d old).

Juvenile Rhus glabra leaves have higher temperatures and lower gas exchange rates than mature leaves when compared in the field during periods of high irradiance.

We sought to test the hypothesis that stomatal development determines the timing of gas exchange competency, which then influences leaf temperature through transpirationally driven leaf cooling. To test this idea, daily patterns of gas exchange and leaflet temperature were obtained from leaves of two distinctively different developmental stages of smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) grown in its native habitat. Juvenile and mature leaves were also sampled for ultrastructural studies of stomatal development.