A collaborative research team, including the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division’s Trent Northen, Suzanne Kosina, and Aymerick Eudes, has discovered a new carbon “pathway” occurring during photosynthesis that is important to understanding plant growth and response to climate change. Stemming from what is known as the C1 photosynthesis reaction, in which plants use carbon dioxide (CO2), water, and sunlight to make oxygen and organic compounds needed for growth, this pathway occurs during photosynthesis to help plants transform carbon into molecules that help build cells, carbohydrates, proteins, DNA molecules, and more.
This research, which could help scientists better understand how plants and forests might respond to climate change, was recently published in the journal Communications Biology and was led by Kolby Jardine, a researcher in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area’s Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, with a secondary appointment in the Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division.
The team expects that plant growth rates will increase because the new pathway helps to build molecules that plants need to grow, and this process is likely to speed up with more CO2 available. With this newfound understanding of how plants might respond to climate change and enhanced CO2 levels on a micro-level, scientists can use this information to understand how forests might respond to climate change on a larger scale, enabling better prediction of how well one of the planet’s most effective carbon sinks will continue to function.
Read more on the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area’s website.
