Climate of Our Future

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2008) — How many mouths does a plant need in order to survive? The answer changes depending on climate, and some of the decisions are made long before a new leaf sprouts.

Stanford researchers have found that the formation of microscopic pores called stomata (derived from the Greek word stoma, meaning mouth) is controlled by a specific signaling pathway that blocks activity of a single protein required for stomata development.

Stomata are found on almost every terrestrial plant on Earth. Their multiple roles include releasing moisture and oxygen into the environment, providing internal air conditioning for the plant and allowing carbon dioxide to enter the leaf, where it is converted to sugar during photosynthesis. Stomata are essential for the survival of plants and, by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, play a significant role in maintaining the health of the planet.

Using Arabidopsis thaliana, a fast-growing, flowering plant used for genetic and developmental studies, Dominique Bergmann, an assistant professor of biology, and paper co-authors Gregory Lampard, a postdoctoral fellow, and Cora MacAlister, a PhD student, found a unique structural region on a protein with 10 sites that can be modified by a well-known, environmentally-controlled signaling pathway to dictate the number of stomata a plant makes      Keep Reading