Overwintering the boreal winter: From thylakoid ultra structure to photosynthetic adaptations of conifers
Evergreen conifers in boreal forest can survive extremely cold (freezing) temperatures during the long dark winter and fully recover during the summer but the precise molecular and/or physiological mechanisms of this adaptation are not well understood. We have analysed seasonal adaptation of photosynthetic machineries of Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) using changes of gene expression, advanced chlorophyll fluorescence measurement and ultrastructural studies using electron microscopy. The performance of Photosystem II and Photosystem I indicate highly dynamic structural and functional seasonal rearrangements of the photosynthetic apparatus. This results in balancing the electron flow through linear and PSI-dependent cyclic electron transfer pathways along with several alternative electron transport pathways (PTOX- and Flv-dependent electron sinks) that play a crucial role during the seasonal transitions.
There are four directories:
- doc: document related to the project, used in the analysis or to submit the data to the ENA
- pipeline: bash script used to pre-process the data
- src/R: R script used for the data analysis
- UPSCb-common: a GitHub submodule pointing to the UPSCb-common repository containing generic scripts