There is growing evidence that acclimation of RD to heat and drought reflects the metabolic down-regulation that reduces carbon depletion and helps plants to grow and survive in Mediterranean-type environments (Rodríguez-Calcerrada et al. 2010, 2011).
The experimental phase was divided in three (acclimation, growing –including the watering treatment period–, and hardening), depending on temperature and photoperiod (see Additional file 1: Table S2 in Supplementary Information).
However, CO2 acclimation studies at population or community level for a whole growing season are thus far very rare.
Observations of similar phenomena were previously described for cells grown during NaCl acclimation [ 26].
Welling and Palva [37] have shown that in addition to their role in cold acclimation during the growing season, CBFs are involved in the regulation of cold tolerance during overwintering in birch.
A common acclimation response of plants grown at elevated [CO2] is to allocate fewer resources to Rubisco, thereby downregulating maximum carboxylation capacity (Vcmax).
In order to test for a possible density-dependence of the relative fitness of the E2 population vs. its EM ancestor, competition assays were performed from a single set of acclimation flasks – grown as above to full density and ensuring identical initial physiological states – that were then diluted to varying extents.
Growth behaviour of both accessions was characterized by recording the total fresh weight of leaf rosettes from 15 independently grown plants for each acclimation state, i.e. the non-acclimated (na) and acclimated (acc) state (Fig. 1a).
For Cd treatments, plants were grown for an additional 8 days (acclimation period) in a 5-fold diluted (not for micronutrients) nutrient solution (acclimation solution) and then exposed to different Cd concentrations (0, 10, and 25 μM CdCl2) for 48 h.
After selecting a candidate, there is an acclimation period before a new employee is contributing at their full potential.
After 2 d of cold acclimation at 4°C, the plants were transferred to a growth room and grown at 22°C under a photoperiod of 14 h light (60 μmol photons m−2 s−1) and 10 h darkness.
