The temperature sensor TWA1 is required for thermotolerance in Arabidopsis.

Plants exposed to incidences of excessive temperatures activate heat-stress responses to cope with the physiological challenge and stimulate long-term acclimation. The mechanism that senses cellular temperature for inducing thermotolerance is still unclear. Here we show that TWA1 is a temperature-sensing transcriptional co-regulator that is needed for basal and acquired thermotolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Sustainable bioenergy for climate mitigation: developing drought-tolerant trees and grasses.

Background And Aims: Bioenergy crops are central to climate mitigation strategies that utilize biogenic carbon, such as BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage), alongside the use of biomass for heat, power, liquid fuels and, in the future, biorefining to chemicals. Several promising lignocellulosic crops are emerging that have no food role - fast-growing trees and grasses - but are well suited as bioenergy feedstocks, including Populus, Salix, Arundo, Miscanthus, Panicum and Sorghum.

Scope: These promising crops remain largely undomesticated and, until recently, have had limited germplasm resources.

Estimating Mesophyll Conductance from Measurements of COO Photosynthetic Discrimination and Carbonic Anhydrase Activity.

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity in leaves catalyzes the O exchange between CO and water during photosynthesis. This feature has been used to estimate the mesophyll conductance to CO ( ) from measurements of online COO photosynthetic discrimination (∆O). Based on CA assays on leaf extracts, it has been argued that CO in mesophyll cells should be in isotopic equilibrium with water in most C species as well as many C dicot species.

Actin filament reorganisation controlled by the SCAR/WAVE complex mediates stomatal response to darkness.

Stomata respond to darkness by closing to prevent excessive water loss during the night. Although the reorganisation of actin filaments during stomatal closure is documented, the underlying mechanisms responsible for dark-induced cytoskeletal arrangement remain largely unknown. We used genetic, physiological and cell biological approaches to show that reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton is required for dark-induced stomatal closure.

Bryophyte gas-exchange dynamics along varying hydration status reveal a significant carbonyl sulphide (COS) sink in the dark and COS source in the light.

Carbonyl sulphide (COS) is a potential tracer of gross primary productivity (GPP), assuming a unidirectional COS flux into the vegetation that scales with GPP. However, carbonic anhydrase (CA), the enzyme that hydrolyses COS, is expected to be light independent, and thus plants without stomata should continue to take up COS in the dark. We measured net CO (A ) and COS (A ) uptake rates from two astomatous bryophytes at different relative water contents (RWCs), COS concentrations, temperatures and light intensities.