Corn leaves reroute energy to survive flickering sun during heat and drought
Zuo D, Yang MY, Yang YJ, Huang W
Climate Adaptation
Corn in a backyard bed gets dappled shade from neighbors, passing clouds, and swaying leaves all day, and this work shows the plant has built-in tricks for shielding its solar machinery when that light flickers on a dry, hot afternoon.
Leaves work like tiny solar panels, and sudden jumps from shade to bright sun can damage them. Corn plants facing drought, or drought plus heat, recycle energy internally and dump extra energy into other outlets, which keeps one of their two main light-capturing systems from being harmed. The other system still took damage under heat and combined stress.
Key Findings
Short-term fluctuating light did not worsen damage to photosystem I under heat, drought, or combined stress, but photosystem II damage increased significantly under heat and combined stress.
Under drought and combined stress, linear electron flow dropped substantially while cyclic electron flow stayed elevated, boosting the proton gradient (ΔpH) during high-light phases.
Alternative electron sinks were strongly activated in the first minute after a low-to-high light shift under combined stress, easing the acceptor-side limitation of photosystem I.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Maize leaves under drought and heat rely on a backup electricity-recycling route and other energy outlets to protect their light-harvesting machinery when sunlight flickers between shade and full sun. This helps explain how corn copes with the messy, variable conditions of a real summer field.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Coordination of cyclic electron flow and alternative electron sinks adjusts photosynthetic regulation in maize under fluctuating light during combined heat and drought stress.
Field-grown maize is frequently exposed to fluctuating light (FL) combined with heat and drought during summer, yet the underlying photosynthetic regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood. We ...
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Maize, also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears. The ears yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern ...