Plant Biology: A New Leaf

The plant kingdom has borne silent witness to the industrial age, but is not mute on the subject - in a Nature paper in 1987 F. I. Woodward showed that the density of stomata on the leaves of British trees has declined significantly since 1800 in parallel with the increase of atmospheric CO₂ levels. Now the mechanism involved in this phenomenon is clarified with the identification of a gene responsible for regulating the plant's response to CO₂ concentration in Arabidopsis. The HIC ('high carbon dioxide) gene encodes an enzyme involved in the synthesis of long-chain fatty acids in stomatal guard cells.

The HIC signalling pathway links CO₂ perception to stomatal development
JULIE E. GRAY, GEOFF H. HOLROYD, FREDERIQUE M. VAN DER LEE, AHMAD R. BAHRAMI, PETER C. SIJMONS, F. IAN WOODWARD, WOLFGANG SCHUCH, ALISTAIR M. HETHERINGTON
Nature 408, 713-716 (7 December 2000)
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Plant biology: Coping with human CO₂ emissions
LAURA SERNA, CARMEN FENOLL
For two centuries, a natural experiment has been showing how increasing atmospheric CO₂ affects plants. Laboratory work provides pointers as to how they will respond in the future.
Nature 408, 656-657 (7 December 2000)
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lifelines : Plants cope with greenhouse gas
Christopher Surridge reports on the identification of the first gene that affects how plants respond to global changes in the composition of the atmosphere. (7 December 2000)

7 December 2000 table of contents