Shade avoidance
Shade avoidance is a set of responses that plants display when they are subjected to the shade of another plant. It often includes elongation, altered flowering time, increased apical dominance and altered partitioning of resources. This set of responses is collectively called the shade-avoidance syndrome (SAS).
Shade responses display varying strength along a continuum. Most plants are neither extreme shade avoiders or tolerators, but possess a combination of the two strategies; this helps adapt them to their environment. However, the ability to perceive and respond to shade plays a very important role in all plants: they are sessile by nature and access to photosynthetically active radiation is essential for plant nutrition and growth.
Over the past few decades, major increases in grain yield have come largely through increasing planting densities. As planting densities increase so does the proportion of far red light in the canopy. Thus, it is likely that plant breeders have selected for lines with reduced SAS in their efforts to produce high yields at high density.
Plants can tell the difference between the shade of an inanimate object (e.g. a rock) and the shade of another plant, as well as the presence of nearby plants that may compete with and shade it in the future. In the shade of a plant, far red light is present in a higher irradiance than red light, as a result of the absorption of the red light by the pigments involved in photosynthesis, while a nearby plant forms an intermediate ratio. This is known as far red enrichment. can be used to measure the ratio of far red to red light, and thus to detect whether the plant is in the shade of another plant, so it can alter its growth strategy accordingly (photomorphogenesis). In Arabidopsis, phytochrome B is the predominant photoreceptor that regulates SAS. Phytochromes exist in two forms: PR and PFR. It is synthesised as PR, but red light triggers a conformational change, producing PFR. Far red light causes the phytochrome to be converted back into PR. For a given red:far red light ratio, there will be a dynamic equilibrium in the relative quantities of PR and PFR present. Far red enrichment causes a build-up of PR. If PR is present above a species-specific threshold, shade avoidance signal transduction pathways will be activated.
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