Unraveling the Evolution of an Extraordinary Photosynthesis in a Tropical Tree Species
University of Vienna
Plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into energy-rich sugars and oxygen in various ways (photosynthesis). Drought is a major challenge in this process. A research team led by Wolfram Weckwerth at the University of Vienna has now demonstrated how a particularly water-efficient variant of this process (CAM) has evolved in diverse ways within a single tropical tree genus. By analysing the genomes of three species of the genus Clusia, the researchers were able to trace how genome