AT A GLANCE Project Information
Project Title: Acclimation of stomatal responses to light: environmental cues, strategies and mechanisms. SenPEP, research group on Sensory Photobiology and Ecophysiology of Plants.
Project Objective: To study the acquisition and use of environmental information by plants, the role of this information in guiding plastic responses and achievement of fitness. The ultimate aim is to use this knowledge of plant function in the development of new crop management practices to increase produce quality and reduce environmental load.
Project Duration and Timing: 01.09.2011 - 31.08.2015 (4 years)
Project Funding: Academy of Finland (518000 € to PJA, other directly to supervised students), Tor and Maj Nessling Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation, University of Helsinki, The Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, Societas Biologica Fennica Vanamo, The Finnish Society of Forest Science.
Above: Tomato rootstock plants growing under different LED lamps in an experiment were the effect of light colour on growth and “quality” was studied.
growers could alter the total amounts and types of flavonoids being produced, thereby improving the nutritional value of their crops. Similar improvements could be made in terms of quality of produce, appearance, taste and smell, as well as production yield and more efficient use of water and energy. We hope that the knowledge obtained from our research will be rapidly transferred back into commercial areas, where similar methods for manipulating light are already being adopted.” Successful
implementation chemicals of these
techniques, he argues, could help to reduce the use of
such as growth
regulators and pesticides, since carefully designed light sources could, in many cases, fulfil these functions by altering the behaviour of plants and other organisms they interact with. “Developments in LED- based greenhouse lighting and in greenhouse cladding have made the results
44
from our research much easier to transfer to horticultural practice,” says Aphalo. Aphalo notes that, as not all of the signals
received by plants are necessarily known or understood, vegetation responses to climate change could be far more complex than hitherto assumed, creating a pressing need for further research in the field of sensory ecology. “To fully explore our main theme, we hope to extend our project beyond 2015. To date, we’ve identified some exciting general concepts for which we conceive a wide number of uses. However, realising them requires excursions into new fields of expertise, and further cross-disciplinary collaborations,” Aphalo
suggests. “Our
ongoing partnerships with Valoya Oy, provider of LED lighting solutions and The Finnish Forest Research Institute are, amongst others, only just beginning to fulfil these exciting prospects.”
★ Insight Publishers | Projects
Project Partners: Valoya Oy
MAIN CONTACT
Pedro J. Aphalo Pedro J. Aphalo is a lecturer and principal investigator at the University of Helsinki. He is a docent at the University of Eastern Finland. His research interests are wide, but focused on plant sensory ecology and photobiology. His ORCID is
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3385- 972X
Contact: Tel: +358 50 4150623 Email:
pedro.aphalo@helsinki.fi Web:
www.helsinki.fi/bioscience/ senpep/
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112