News Biology 23 April 2018
Long term experiment shows we’ve got it wrong on photosynthesis
Two decades of plant growth throw accepted wisdom about carbon and plants into doubt. Fiona McMillan reports.
Plants fix carbon from the atmosphere through one of two versions of photosynthesis, known as C3 and C4. The science surrounding these alternative pathways was long thought settled, but now research suggests the assumptions made might be wrong.
It has been held that the first version, C3, was the most sensitive to environmental carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, and that the plants using it would produce more biomass as those levels rise.
Results of a 20-year experiment, however, have overturned such certainties, revealing the biomass boost to be only a short-term effect that reverses over longer time-scales.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/long-term-experiment-shows-we-ve-got-it-wrong-on-photosynthesis