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Plethora of QTLs found in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals complexity of genetic variation for photosynthesis in dynamic light conditions

The environments in which plant species evolved are now generally understood to be dynamic rather than static. Photosynthesis has to operate within these dynamic environments, such as sudden changes to light intensities. Plants have evolved photoprotection mechanisms that prevent damage caused by sudden changes to high light intensities. The extent of genetic variation within plants species to deal with these dynamic light conditions remains largely unexplored. Here we show that one accession of A. thaliana has a more efficient photoprotection mechanism in dynamic light conditions, compared to six other accessions. The construction of a doubled haploid population and subsequent phenotyping in a dynamically controlled high-throughput system reveals up to 15 QTLs for photoprotection. Identifying the causal gene underlying one of the major QTLs shows that an allelic variant of cpFtsY results in more efficient photoprotection under high and fluctuating light intensities. Further analyses reveal this allelic variant to be overprotecting, reducing biomass in a range of dynamic environmental conditions. This suggests that within nature, adaptation can occur to more stressful environments and that revealing the causal genes and mechanisms can help improve the general understanding of photosynthetic functioning. The other QTLs possess different photosynthetic properties, and thus together they show how there is ample intraspecific genetic variation for photosynthetic functioning in dynamic environments. With photosynthesis being one of the last unimproved components of crop yield, this amount of genetic variation for photosynthesis forms excellent input for breeding approaches. In these breeding approaches, the interactions with the environmental conditions should however be precisely assessed. Doing so correctly, allows us to tap into nature’s solution to challenging environmental conditions.