In this work, we studied the changes in high light tolerance (强光耐受性) and photosynthetic activity (光合活性) in leaves of the Arabidopsis thaliana rosette (莲座叶) throughout the vegetative stage (营养生长阶段) of growth. We implemented an image analysis workflow to analyze the capacity of both the whole plant and individual leaves to cope with (应付) excess excitation energy (激发能) by following the changes in the absorbed light energy partitioning (配置). The data show that leaf and plant age are both important factors influencing the fate of excitation energy. During the dark-to-light transition, the age of the plant affects mostly steady state levels of photochemical (光化学) and non-photochemical quenching (NPQ; 非光化学淬灭), leading to an increased photosynthetic performance (光合性能) of its leaves. The age of the leaf affects the induction kinetics (诱导动力学) of NPQ. These observations were confirmed using model selection procedures (模型选择程序). We further investigate how different leaves on a rosette acclimate to (适应) high light and show that younger leaves are less prone to (容易) photoinhibition (光抑制) than older leaves. Our results stress that both plant and leaf age should be taken into consideration during the quantification (量化) of photosynthetic (光合) and photoprotective (光保护) traits to produce repeatable and reliable results.

研究方向：光合作用。

First Published data: October 10, 2017.