Physiological and Molecular Response of Liriodendron chinense to Varying Stand Density

Autor: Jun Chen, Ting Li, Jinfeng Cai, Pengfei Yu, Ying Guo
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Plants, Vol 13, Iss 4, p 508 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2223-7747
DOI: 10.3390/plants13040508
Popis: Stand density affects the potentially superior productivity of forest ecosystems directly by regulating the light and nutrient availability of trees. Understanding how stand density influences the growth and development of trees is crucial for supporting forest management in the context of climate change. We focused on Liriodendron chinense in experimental plantations created in 2003, with planting densities ranging from 277 to 10,000 trees per hectare at six plots. The leaf structure and photosynthetic capacity of L. chinense changed significantly under different stand densities, which had a negative impact on their biomass (leaf mass) and nutrient (total carbohydrate content) accumulation. Transcriptional differences were observed among samples from plots with different planting densities. The expression of 1784 genes was negatively dependent on stand density, participating mainly in the biological processes of “circadian rhythm”, “carbon metabolism”, and “amino acid biosynthesis”. Furthermore, we identified a photosynthesis-related module and constructed a gene regulatory network to discover that the transcription factors of MYB and bHLH may have important roles in the transcriptional regulation of photosynthesis biosynthesis by activating or repressing the expression of petA (Litul.15G096200), psbE (Litul.10G033900), and petD (Litul.17G061600) at different stand densities. Our study quantified the impact of stand density on tree growth at physiological and molecular levels. Our observations provide theoretical support for plantation establishment of L. chinense.
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