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Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata

Regulation of Transpiration by Stomata

During photosynthesis, plants acquire the necessary carbon dioxide and release the produced oxygen back into the atmosphere. Openings in the epidermis of plant leaves is the site of this exchange of gasses. A single opening is called a stoma—derived from the Greek word for “mouth.” Stomata open and close in response to a variety of environmental cues.

Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss

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Though evaporation from plant leaves drives transpiration, it also results in loss of water. Because water is critical for photosynthetic reactions and other cellular processes, evolutionary pressures on plants in different environments have driven the acquisition of adaptations that reduce water loss.

Energy Budgets

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Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...

Light Acquisition

Light Acquisition

In order to produce glucose, plants need to capture sufficient light energy. Many modern plants have evolved leaves specialized for light acquisition. Leaves can be only millimeters in width or tens of meters wide, depending on the environment. Due to competition for sunlight, evolution has driven the evolution of increasingly larger leaves and taller plants, to avoid shading by their neighbors with contaminant elaboration of root architecture and mechanisms to transport water and nutrients.

Limits to Natural Selection

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C4 Pathway and CAM

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C4 Pathway
The C4 pathway is used by plants such as...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Published on: October 12, 2015

Evolutionary trade-offs in stomatal spacing

Tracy Lawson¹, Jennifer C McElwain²

¹School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.

The New Phytologist

|May 10, 2016

Summary

No abstract available in PubMed .

Keywords:

allometry climate change cost-benefit analysis evolution guard cell stomatal conductance stomatal density and patterning trait trade-offs

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