New insights into the control of stomatal aperture and development by CO2

气孔是叶片表面的气孔，可以打开和关闭，从而控制二氧化碳的吸收(光合作用和干物质积累必不可少)和植物水蒸气的损失(最大限度地减少水分损失对于抗旱很重要)。气孔孔的开度和叶片表面形成的气孔数量受环境因素控制，如光照强度和环境中二氧化碳的浓度。气孔的获得被认为是陆地植物进化的关键因素，因为它允许它们生活在一系列不同的、通常是波动的环境中，并仍然控制着水分含量。气孔对世界的水和碳循环起着重要的控制作用。这很容易在地方层面上得到认可，在夏季的几个月里，英国一公顷的小麦作物每天将通过气孔损失60吨水分。因此，了解气孔如何工作对于农业，特别是在土壤水分保护/作物水分利用效率的背景下，以及预测全球环境变化的影响(对水/碳循环的影响)都是重要的。这项应用的目的是了解二氧化碳如何控制气孔开度和叶表面形成的气孔数量。在没有具有国际约束力的立法的情况下，全球大气中二氧化碳的浓度将会增加。我们知道，二氧化碳浓度的增加会导致a)叶片上形成的气孔减少，b)气孔孔减少。我们特别感兴趣的是找出这两个过程如何发生的分子细节。我们的申请是基于初步工作，在这些工作中，我们已经确定了无法对二氧化碳浓度增加做出适当反应的植物(它们要么无法对二氧化碳做出反应，要么对二氧化碳非常敏感，而有些植物则无法调节叶片表面发育的气孔数量)。我们将使用遗传学方法找出这些个体中哪些基因被破坏，并使用生理学实验来了解哪些细胞过程受到破坏，从而导致反应失败。我们的工作成果将为我们提供新的见解，了解二氧化碳如何控制叶片表面形成的气孔数量，以及它们对这种重要温室气体的打开和关闭方式。了解这些过程是如何发生的，可能对有兴趣培育新品种作物的植物育种者有利，这些品种能够更好地应对以二氧化碳浓度增加为特征的气候中的生长。我们的工作也与英国政府的研究计划“与环境变化共存”和“全球食品安全”非常契合。

Stomata are pores found on the surfaces of leaves that open and close and thereby control the uptake of carbon dioxide (essential for photosynthesis and dry matter accumulation) and the loss of water vapour from the plant (minimising water loss is important in drought tolerance). The aperture of the stomatal pore and the number of stomata that develop on the surface of the leaf are controlled by environmental factors, such as light intensity and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the environment. The acquisition of stomata is considered to be a key element in the evolution of land plants as it allowed them to inhabit a range of different, often fluctuating environments, and still control water content. Stomata exert major controls on the water and carbon cycles of the world. This can be readily appreciated at the local level where a one hectare crop of wheat in the UK will lose 60 tonnes of water a day through its stomata during the summer months. Accordingly, understanding how stomata work is important both for agriculture, especially in the context of soil water conservation/crop water use efficiency, and for predicting the impacts of global environment change (impact on water/C cycles). The objective of this application is to understand how carbon dioxide controls stomatal aperture and the number of stomata that form on the leaf surface. In the absence of internationally binding legislation global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are set to increase. We know that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide cause a) less stomata to form on leaves and b) stomatal pores to decrease in aperture. We are specifically interested in finding out the molecular details of how these two processes happen. Our application is based on preliminary work in which we have identified plants unable to respond appropriately to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide (they either fail to close their stomata in response to carbon dioxide or are 'super-sensitive', while some fail to adjust the number of stomata that develop on the surface of the leaf). We will use genetic approaches to find out which genes are disrupted in these individuals and use physiological experiments to understand what cellular processes are damaged and thereby cause the failure to respond. The results of our work will provide us with new insights into how carbon dioxide controls the number of stomata that form on the leaf surface and the way that they open and close in response to this important greenhouse gas. Understanding how these processes occur is likely to be of benefit to plant breeders interested in producing new varieties of crop better able to cope with growing in a climate characterised by increased concentrations of carbon dioxide. Our work also fits well with UK Government Research Programmes 'Living With Environment Change' and 'Global Food Security'.