Photoperiodism

Photoperiodism is the physiological reaction of organisms to the length of night or a dark period. It occurs in plants, animals as well as fruiting. Photoperiodism can also be defined as the developmental responses of plants to the relative lengths of light and dark periods. They are classified under three groups according to the photoperiods: short-day plants, long-day plants, and day-neutral plants. Many flowering plants (angiosperms) use a photoreceptor protein, such as phytochrome or cryptochrome, to sense seasonal changes in night length, or photoperiod, which they take as signals to flower. In a further subdivision, obligate photoperiodic plants absolutely require a long or short enough night before flowering, whereas facultative photoperiodic plants are more likely to flower under one condition.

Phytochrome comes in two forms: Pr and Pfr. Red light (which is present during the day) converts phytochrome to its active form (pfr). This then triggers the plant to grow. In turn, far-red light is present in the shade or in the dark and this converts phytochrome from pfr to pr. Pr is the inactive form of phytochrome and will not allow for plant growth. This system of Pfr to Pr conversion allows the plant to sense when it is night and when it is day. Pfr can also be converted back to Pr by a process known as dark reversion, where long periods of darkness trigger the conversion of Pfr. This is important in regards to plant flowering. Experiments by Halliday et al. showed that manipulations of the red-to far-red ratio in Arabidopsis can alter flowering. They discovered that plants tend to flower later when exposed to more red light, proving that red light is inhibitory to flowering. Other experiments have proven this by exposing plants to extra red-light in the middle of the night. A short-day plant will not flower if light is turned on for a few minutes in the middle of the night and a long-day plant can flower if exposed to more red-light in the middle of the night.

Cryptochromes are another type of photoreceptor that is important in photoperiodism. Cryptochromes absorb blue light and UV-A. Cryptochromes entrain the circadian clock to light. It has been found that both cryptochrome and phytochrome abundance relies on light and the amount of cryptochrome can change depending on day-length. This shows how important both of the photoreceptors are in regards to determining day-length.