The Biological Control of Carbon Pathways Inside the Plant as a Response to Changing Environment: a Learning Experience
Marcos
Silveira
Buckeridge, Instituto de Botânica, Seção de Fisiologia e Bioquímica de Plantas, msbuck@usp.br
(Presenting)
Plants are one of the principal components of the carbon cycle in the biosphere. When carbon dioxide enters plant leaves through stomata, its pathway is tightly controlled as it is metabolically partitioned through different tissues and cells. Carbon enters the plant through photosynthesis, producing sucrose, which is transported and transformed into several different carbon containing compounds with structural and/or dynamic functions in the plant. It is becoming clear that along side plant hormones and other signalling compounds in plant cells, carbon itself, in the form of simple sugars such as sucrose and glucose can also work as signals for partitioning. The flux of carbon through the plant involves a network of multiple signals that may result in stimulatory or inhibitory changes depending on the environmental conditions. Plants appear to have a “perception” of the patterns of environmental changes that result in a learning-like process. The responses of plants to environmental changes have been modulated during evolution. At least for the last 400,000 years, most plants have not experimented living in a CO2 atmospheric concentration with more than ca.300ppm. While the CO2 concentration is rising quickly due to emission related to human activities, we can speculate about what will plants learn from this new experience. FAPESP