The Evolutionary Origin of C<sub>4</sub> Photosynthesis in the Grass Subtribe Neurachninae
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Australian grass subtribe Neurachninae contains closely related species that use C 3 , C 4 , and C 2 photosynthesis. To gain insight into the evolution of C 4 photosynthesis in grasses, we examined leaf gas exchange, anatomy and ultrastructure, and tissue localization of Gly decarboxylase subunit P (GLDP) in nine Neurachninae species. We identified previously unrecognized variation in leaf structure and physiology within Neurachne that represents varying degrees of C 3 -C 4 intermediacy in the Neurachninae. These include inverse correlations between the apparent photosynthetic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) compensation point in the absence of day respiration (C * ) and chloroplast and mitochondrial investment in the mestome sheath (MS), where CO 2 is concentrated in C 2 and C 4 Neurachne species; width of the MS cells; frequency of plasmodesmata in the MS cell walls adjoining the parenchymatous bundle sheath; and the proportion of leaf GLDP invested in the MS tissue. Less than 12% of the leaf GLDP was allocated to the MS of completely C 3 Neurachninae species with C * values of 56-61 mmol mol 21 , whereas twothirds of leaf GLDP was in the MS of Neurachne lanigera, which exhibits a newly-identified, partial C 2 phenotype with C * of 44 mmol mol 21 . Increased investment of GLDP in MS tissue of the C 2 species was attributed to more MS mitochondria and less GLDP in mesophyll mitochondria. These results are consistent with a model where C 4 evolution in Neurachninae initially occurred via an increase in organelle and GLDP content in MS cells, which generated a sink for photorespired CO 2 in MS tissues.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".