Increasing salinity could free some shade-averse plants from the shadows of their neighbours.
Tag - C4 photosynthesis
Fi Gennu
To C4 or not to C4 if you’re a tree? Some possible answers
C4 photosynthesis is an efficient way of harnessing energy, yet trees rarely use it. Why is that?
Liam Elliott
Savanna tree and C4 grass acclimation responses across low-to-high CO2
By the year 2100, atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]a) could reach 800 ppm, having risen from ~200 ppm since the Neogene, beginning ~24 Myr ago. Changing [CO2]a affects plant carbon–water balance, with implications...
Alex Assiry
Dissecting metabolic flux in C4 plants: experimental and theoretical approaches
There were many great articles concerning cross-disciplinary research at the interface between plant biology, mathematics and computer science before the launch in silico Plants (isP). We are excited for isP to be home...
Rachel Shekar
Not all tropical plants can stand the heat brought by climate change
How will increasing temperatures affect plants where temperatures are hottest? A paper in the Journal of Ecology looks at plants around Kilimanjaro.
Alun Salt
Atmospheric change, plant water status and the origins of agriculture
The genesis of agricultural practice marks one of the most important events in human history. Low atmospheric CO2 has previously been shown to limit the productivity of the wild progenitors of C3 and C4 founder crops...
botanyone
C4 Wheat? Lend an ear to hear more
One of the Grand Challenges – and, arguably, the Holy Grail – of plant research at present is an attempt to improve the photosynthetic efficiency of plants. Somewhat surprisingly, the fundamental photosynthetic pathway...
Nigel Chaffey
Gas exchange measurements on Miscanthus leaves
Miscanthus has a high yield potential, but even though it is less cold sensitive than other C4 species, it emerges later in spring than C3 species. Xiurong et al. identified one Miscanthus sacchariflorus with a level of...
Chilling tolerance of C4 photosynthesis in Miscanthus
A study finds relatives of Miscanthus ×giganteus with significantly superior capacity for photosynthesis at chilling temperatures for the first time.
Plant evolution: The inevitability of C4 photosynthesis
C4 photosynthesis may have evolved first to correct an intercellular nitrogen imbalance, and only later evolved a central role in carbon fixation.
AJ Cann
An explosive mix: C4, C3, C2 and CCM
How many more variants exist amongst the 325,000 species of flowering plants (let alone all the algae and other members of the plant kingdom)?
PEP-CK recruitment in C4 photosynthesis of eudicots
There is emerging evidence that some C4 eudicots involve the photosynthetic enzyme PEP-CK in carbon acquisition alongside other decarboxylation enzymes.
Scaring the crows…
One way of increasing crop productivity is to increase the amount of grain or other harvestable product that is actually harvested from the plant. To that end scarecrows were invented by human beings, although their...
Phytonumeracy
Echoing a plea from Ron Milo and Robert Last that computational methods [which is sort of ‘math(s)’…] should be used to gain deeper understanding of the fundamental principles that govern regulation of metabolic...
