TREES USING WATER MORE EFFICIENTLY AS CO2 RISES

TREES ARE ALREADY EVOLVING TO COPE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

A study by scientists with the U.S. Forest Service, Harvard University and partners suggests that trees are responding to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by becoming more efficient at using water.

 

This new analysis suggests that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is having a direct and unexpectedly strong influence on ecosystem processes, and biosphere-atmosphere interactions in temperate and boreal forests.

Terrestrial plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, a process that is accompanied by the loss of water vapor from leaves. The ratio of water loss to carbon gain, or water-use efficiency, is a key characteristic of ecosystem function that is central to the global cycles of water, energy and carbon. 

Read more here - http://phys.org/news/2013-07-trees-efficiently-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide.html

Tree evolution - http://www.rfs.org.uk/learning/tree-evolution

More on plants and trees on this blog - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Plants%20and%20Trees