Adaptations To Dry Conditions
Drought tolerant plants typically make use of either C4 carbon fixation or crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) to fix carbon during photosynthesis. Both are improvements over the more common but more basal C3 pathway in that they are more energy efficient. CAM is particularly good for arid conditions because carbon dioxide can be taken up at night, allowing the stomata to stay closed during the heat of day and thus reducing water loss.
Many adaptations for dry conditions are structural, including the following:
- Adaptations of the stomata to reduce water loss, such as reduced numbers or waxy surfaces.
- Water storage in succulent above-ground parts or water-filled tubers.
- Adaptations in the root system to increase water absorption.
- Trichomes (small hairs) on the leaves to absorb atmospheric water.
Read more about this topic: Drought Tolerance
Famous quotes containing the words dry and/or conditions:
“She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Technological change defines the horizon of our material world as it shapes the limiting conditions of what is possible and what is barely imaginable. It erodes ... assumptions about the nature of our reality, the “pattern” in which we dwell, and lays open new choices.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)