Question

Climate change and photosynthetic pathways. Please describe in detail the three major photosynthetic pathways C3, C4, and CAM. As the world heats up and gets drier in many crop growing regions, what crops do you think will become more prominent? Specifically, I am thinking what crops with particular photosynthetic pathways will become more common? What are the photosynthetic pathways of crops commonly grown in MA. What crops do you think will be grown here in 100 years?                                                                               

Answer 1

C4 Cycle

C4 reaction cycle and CAM pathway

CAM Daytime and Night time Comparison

C3 plants generally have a greater ability for temperature acclimation of photosynthesis across a broad temperature range, CAM plants acclimated day and night photosynthetic process differentially to temperature, and C4 plants was adapted to warm environments.As a result, C4 plants have twice as the photosynthetic capacity as C3 plants and can cope with higher temperatures, less water, and available nitrogen. It's for these reasons, that crops with C4 and CAM traits (process efficiency, tolerance of high temperatures, higher yields, and resistance to drought and salinity) would only be avle to offset environmental changes faced by global warming.

Crops that will be grown in 100 years from now would mainly consist of monocots and dicots, Maize, Soyabean, Sarghum,Sugarcame, Amaranthus, Pearl millet, Pineapple etc.