This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/ppl.13111 Low temperature and high light dependent dynamic photoprotective strategies in Arabidopsis thaliana Maya Velitchkova a,* , Antoaneta V. Popova a , Aygyun Faik a , Milena Gerganova a and Alexander G. Ivanov a,b a Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev str. Bl. 21, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria b Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Str. N, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada Correspondence *Corresponding author: e-mail: mayav@bio21.bas.bg Arabidopsis thaliana has been recognized as a chilling tolerant species based on analysis of resistance to low temperature stress, however, the mechanisms involved in this tolerance are not yet clarified. The low temperature-induced effects are exacerbated when plants are exposed to low temperatures in the presence of high light irradiance but the experimental data on the impact of light intensity during cold stress and its influence during recovery from stress are rather limited. The main objective of this study was to re-examine the photosynthetic responses of Arabidopsis thaliana plants to short term (6 days) low temperature stress (12/10°C) under optimal (150 μmol m −2 s −1 ) and high light (500 μmol m −2 s −1 ) intensity and the subsequent recovery from the stress. Simultaneous measurements of the in vivo and in vitro functional performance of both photosystem II (PSII) and photosystem I (PSI), as well as, net photosynthesis, low temperature (77K) chlorophyll fluorescence and immunoblot analysis of the relative abundance of PSII and PSI reaction center proteins were used to evaluate the role of light in the development of possible protective mechanisms during low temperature stress and the consequent recovery from exposure to low temperature and different light intensities. The results presented clearly suggest that Arabidopsis plants can employ a number of highly dynamic photoprotective strategies This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.