Grasses rank among the world’s most ecologically and economically important plants including wheat, barley, rice and maize. Evolution of the C4 syndrome has made photosynthesis highly efficient in about half of their species, inspiring intensive efforts to engineer the pathway into C3 crops to improve drought and heat tolerance. An international collaboration called the Grass Phylogeny Working Group (including Trevor Hodkinson, TCD) produced one of the most comprehensive phylogenetic trees of the grasses and used this to show how C4 evolution has evolved. Results published in the journal New Phytologist show that it has evolved repeatedly 22-24 times and within two groups in particular.
Author
Trevor Hodkinson: hodkinst[at]tcd.ie
Photo credit
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