Environmental factors have a greater influence on photosynthetic capacity in <scp>C<sub>4</sub></scp> plants than biochemical subtypes or growth forms
Our understanding of how photosynthetic capacity varies among C<sub>4</sub> species and across growth and measurement conditions remains limited. We collated 1696 CO<sub>2</sub> response curves of net CO<sub>2</sub> assimilation rate (A/C<sub>i</sub> curves) from C<sub>4</sub> species grown and measured at various environmental conditions and used these data to estimate the apparent maximum carboxylation activity of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (V<sub>pmaxA</sub>) and CO<sub>2</sub>-saturated net photosynthetic rate (A<sub>max</sub>), two key parameters describing photosynthetic capacity. We examined how V<sub>pmaxA</sub> and A<sub>max</sub> vary with species-specific traits, growth and measurement conditions. We found little systematic variation of V<sub>pmaxA</sub> and A<sub>max</sub> across the classical C<sub>4</sub> biochemical subtypes or growth forms, but showed that growth temperature and measurement conditions are major factors determining C<sub>4</sub> photosynthetic capacity. We found no evidence that common C<sub>4</sub> model species (e.g. maize, sorghum and Setaria viridis) differ in photosynthetic capacity from other C<sub>4</sub> species when grown in controlled environments. However, C<sub>4</sub> model species showed up to twice the photosynthetic capacity of other C<sub>4</sub> species when grown in the field. Our multivariate model accounts for 47-51% of the variation reported in V<sub>pmaxA</sub> and A<sub>max</sub>, and we argue that environmental conditions have a greater influence on C<sub>4</sub> photosynthetic capacity than biochemical subtypes or growth forms.
Authors
- Florian A. Busch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6912-0156)
- Nicholas G. Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7048-4387)
- Shu Han Gan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8699-3669)
- Vinod Jacob (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6627-5993)
- Susanne von Caemmerer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8366-2071)
- Oula Ghannoum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1341-0741)
- Daniel W. A. Noble (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9460-8743)
- Andrew D. B. Leakey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6251-024X)
- Robert T. Furbank (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8700-6613)
- Belinda E. Medlyn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5728-9827)
- Russell Woodford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6766-2274)
- Yuzhen Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1857-9244)
- Danica Lombardozzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3557-7929)
- Jürgen Knauer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-7067)
- Christopher J. Still (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8295-4494)
- Lianhong Gu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5756-8738)
- Maria Ermakova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8466-4186)
- Rowan F. Sage (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6183-9246)
- Daniel M. Griffith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7463-4004)
- Balasaheb V. Sonawane (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6539-5179)
- Martha Ludwig (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0324-7602)
- Karine Prado (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0502-0380)
- Murilo de Melo Peixoto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6242-6870)
- Florence R. Danila (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7352-3852)
- Danielle A. Way
- Varsha S. Pathare (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6220-7531)
- Patrick Calvin Friesen
- Elizabeth A. Ainsworth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3199-8999)
- Russell K. Monson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7671-4371)
- Shuai Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2545-7763)
Institutions
- NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Texas Tech University (US)
- Western University (CA)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- Oregon State University (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Duke University (US)
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Carnegie Department of Plant Biology (US)
- South China Botanical Garden (CN)
- NSF NCAR Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory (US)
- Manitoba Beekeepers' Association (CA)
- New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (US)
- Monash University (AU)
- Stony Brook University (US)
- Western Sydney University (AU)
- Universidade Federal de Goiás (BR)
- Washington State University (US)
- Columbia University (US)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Michigan State University (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- New Phytologist
- Published
- 2025-08-31
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70525
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.21
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Carnegie Institution for Science
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Office of Science
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Australian Research Council
- Office of International Science and Engineering
- Biological and Environmental Research