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Leaf carbohydrate controls over Arabidopsis growth and response to elevated CO 2 : an experimentally based model
Author(s) -
Rasse Daniel P.,
Tocquin Pierre
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
new phytologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.742
H-Index - 244
eISSN - 1469-8137
pISSN - 0028-646X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2006.01848.x
Subject(s) - starch , arabidopsis thaliana , mutant , sugar , growth rate , carbohydrate , respiration , chemistry , botany , arabidopsis , biology , biophysics , biochemistry , gene , geometry , mathematics
Summary• Transient starch production is thought to strongly control plant growth and response to elevated CO 2 . We tested this hypothesis with an experimentally based mechanistic model in Arabidopsis thaliana . • Experiments were conducted on wild‐type (WT) A. thaliana , starch‐excess ( sex1 ) and starchless ( pgm ) mutants under ambient and elevated CO 2 conditions to determine parameters and validate the model. • The model correctly predicted that mutant growth is approx. 20% of that in WT, and the absolute response of both mutants to elevated CO 2 is an order of magnitude lower than in WT. For sex1 , direct starch unavailability explained the growth responses. For pgm , we demonstrated experimentally that maintenance respiration is proportional to leaf soluble sugar concentration, which gave the necessary feedback mechanism on modelled growth. • Our study suggests that the effects of sugar–starch cycling on growth can be explained by simple allocation processes, and the maximum rate of leaf growth (sink capacity) exerts a strong control over the response to elevated CO 2 of herbaceous plants such as A. thaliana .