Fast Assimilation-Temperature Response: a FAsTeR method for measuring the temperature dependence of leaf-level photosynthesis.

Abstract

We present the Fast Assimilation-Temperature Response (FAsTeR) method, a new method for measuring plant assimilation-temperature (AT) response that reduces measurement time and increases data density compared with conventional methods. The FAsTeR method subjects plant leaves to a linearly increasing temperature ramp while taking rapid, nonequilibrium measurements of gas exchange variables. Two postprocessing steps are employed to correct measured assimilation rates for nonequilibrium effects and sensor calibration drift. Results obtained with the new method are compared with those from two conventional stepwise methods. Our new method accurately reproduces results obtained from conventional methods, reduces measurement time by a factor of c. 3.3 (from c. 90 to 27 min), and increases data density by a factor of c. 55 (from c. 10 to c. 550 observations). Simulation results demonstrate that increased data density substantially improves confidence in parameter estimates and drastically reduces the influence of noise. By improving measurement speed and data density, the FAsTeR method enables users to ask fundamentally new kinds of ecological and physiological questions, expediting data collection in short-field campaigns, and improving the representativeness of data across species in the literature.

Plant phenotyping relevance

葉レベル光合成の温度応答を高速・高密度に測定する新手法を開発し、従来法と比較検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心です。

Code and data availability

The paper's Data availability statement explicitly provides full data and R code (postmeasurement corrections, analyses, figures, and FAsTeR protocol) at the authors' public GitHub repository.