Evolutionary context for understanding and manipulating plant responses to past, present and future atmospheric [CO2]

Variation in atmospheric [CO(2)] is a prominent feature of the environmental history over which vascular plants have evolved. Periods of falling and low [CO(2)] in the palaeo-record appear to have created selective pressure for important adaptations in modern plants. Today, rising [CO(2)] is a key component of anthropogenic global environmental change that will impact plants and the ecosystem goods and services they deliver. Currently, there is limited evidence that natural plant populations have evolved in response to contemporary increases in [CO(2)] in ways that increase plant productivity or fitness, and no evidence for incidental breeding of crop varieties to achieve greater yield enhancement from rising [CO(2)]. Evolutionary responses to elevated [CO(2)] have been studied by applying selection in controlled environments, quantitative genetics and trait-based approaches. Findings to date suggest that adaptive changes in plant traits in response to future [CO(2)] will not be consistently observed across species or environments and will not be large in magnitude compared with physiological and ecological responses to future [CO(2)]. This lack of evidence for strong evolutionary effects of elevated [CO(2)] is surprising, given the large effects of elevated [CO(2)] on plant phenotypes. New studies under more stressful, complex environmental conditions associated with climate change may revise this view. Efforts are underway to engineer plants to: (i) overcome the limitations to photosynthesis from today's [CO(2)] and (ii) benefit maximally from future, greater [CO(2)]. Targets range in scale from manipulating the function of a single enzyme (e.g. Rubisco) to adding metabolic pathways from bacteria as well as engineering the structural and functional components necessary for C(4) photosynthesis into C(3) leaves. Successfully improving plant performance will depend on combining the knowledge of the evolutionary context, cellular basis and physiological integration of plant responses to varying [CO(2)].