Abstract
Trees cover vast areas of the Earth’s landmasses. They mitigate erosion, capture carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and support biodiversity, and also are a source of food, raw materials and energy for human populations. Understanding the growth cycles of trees is fundamental for many areas of research. Trees, like most other organisms, have evolved a circadian clock to synchronize their growth and development with the daily and seasonal cycles of the environment. These regular changes in light, daylength and temperature are perceived via a range of dedicated receptors and cause resetting of the circadian clock to local time. This allows anticipation of daily and seasonal fluctuations and enables trees to co-ordinate their metabolism and physiology to ensure vital processes occur at the optimal times. In this review, we explore the current state of knowledge concerning the regulation of growth and seasonal dormancy in trees, using information drawn from model systems such as Populus spp.
Highlights
The combination of the Earth’s orbit with its daily rotation about a tilted axis produces regular changes in daylength, which lead to changes in temperature, humidity and often precipitation
The coupling between inner timing and the external environment was conceptualized in the mid-20th century when chronobiologists proposed models of the innate timekeeping mechanism, as well as theories to account for its interactions with light and photoperiod (Garner and Allard 1922, Bünning 1936, Pittendrigh and Minis 1964)
The timing of growth in perennial plants and forest trees is directly related to productivity
Summary
The combination of the Earth’s orbit with its daily rotation about a tilted axis produces regular changes in daylength, which lead to changes in temperature, humidity and often precipitation. In Arabidopsis, the single MYB domain transcription factors CCA1 and LHY are clock components that directly activate the CBF signalling cascade and confer low temperature resilience (Bieniawska et al 2008, Espinoza et al 2010, Dong et al 2011) In both Arabidopsis and Populus spp., proper regulation of the phy photoreceptors is required for normal circadian period and control of phase (Somers et al 1998, Salomé et al 2002, Kozarewa et al 2010).
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