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Editorial
. 2017 Jun 1;68(14):3689-3695.
doi: 10.1093/jxb/erx278.

Overcoming adversity through diversity: aquatic carbon concentrating mechanisms

Howard Griffiths  1 , Moritz T Meyer  1   2 , Rosalind E M Rickaby  3
Affiliations
Editorial

Overcoming adversity through diversity: aquatic carbon concentrating mechanisms

Howard Griffiths et al. J Exp Bot. .
No abstract available

Keywords: Carbon-concentrating mechanism (CCM); convergent evolution; inorganic carbon accumulation; macrophytes; marine and freshwater; phytoplankton.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(a) The sensitivity of equilibrium dissolved CO2 (blue; Weiss, 1974) and O2 (red; Benson and Krause, 1984) concentrations to temperature and salinity (S; 0, dashed line, and 35 ppt, solid line) and the modern range (with an atmosphere of 400 ppmV) of dissolved O2/CO2 ratios for freshwater (fw) and seawater (sw) between 0 and 30 °C.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
An estimate of the threshold when the concentration of dissolved aqueous O2 rose to a higher concentration than CO2 in seawater as a trigger for the emergence of CCMs (grey bar). The CO2 concentrations that would be equimolar with O2 reconstructions (blue open circles – Lyons et al., 2014; red closed circles – Lenton et al., 2016) are based on an approximate 30-fold difference in solubilities. The Phanerozoic history of atmospheric CO2 is compiled from paleosols (black squares with crosses to show the uncertainty; Royer 2006) and the GEOCARB III model (solid black line; Berner and Kothavala, 2001). Also shown are the first appearance of fossil charcoal evidence that O2>15–17% (black bar, Glasspool et al., 2004), and a Rubisco positive selection event (magenta bar, Young et al., 2012).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Compiled Rubisco Kc (µmol kg–1) versus Ko (µmol kg–1) (Galmés et al., 2014; Young et al., 2016; Heureux et al., 2017) for a range of plant and algal species with Form 1B Rubisco-containing organisms in green, and Form 1D Rubisco-containing organisms in red (rhodophyta) and blue (diatoms, chrysophytes and haptophytes). Lines are plotted that indicate a Kc/Ko ratio of 1 (black), 16 (blue, equivalent to modern dissolved O2/CO2 ratio of seawater) and 35 (an apparent line of best fit to the C3 data). The range of environmental aqueous concentrations is indicated by the grey box. The evolution of the dissolved concentrations and O2/CO2 ratio from ~1 at 420 Ma (see Fig. 2) to 16 today (‘modern’) is indicated by the blue arrow. Note that the O2:CO2 dissolved ratio of natural waters at glacial maxima of the Pleistocene was ~35.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Badger MR, Price GD. 2003. CO2 concentrating mechanisms in cyanobacteria: molecular components, their diversity and evolution. Journal of Experimental Botany 54, 609–622. - PubMed
    1. Beardall J, Griffiths H, Raven JA. 1982. Carbon isotope discrimination and the CO2 accumulating mechanism in Chlorella pyrenoidosa.Journal of Experimental Botany 33, 729–737.
    1. Beardall J, Raven J. 2017. Cyanobacteria vs green algae: which group has the edge?Journal of Experimental Botany 68, 3697–3699. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Benson BB, Krause D. 1984. The concentration and isotopic fractionation of oxygen dissolved in freshwater and seawater in equilibrium with the atmosphere. Limnology and Oceanography 29, 620–632.
    1. Berner RA, Kothavala Z. 2001. GEOCARB III: a revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time. Americal Journal of Science 301, 182–204.

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