Question

Please help!!!!

1. Climate change due to the rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gases (particularly CO2) in our atmosphere is a serious current global concern. How might stomata density serve as a bioindicator for monitoring the response of plants to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the future? (Hint: what do the data say for how stomata density varies with CO2 concentration?)

2. As a related question to the one above, how might stomata density serve as a bioindicator for estimating CO2 concentrations in the past (paleoclimates)?

Answer 1

1. According to the latest research which is published in the journal of "PNAS" , scientist have found that as the concentration of carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, due to green house effect the density of stomata pores decreases. This is so because plants want to minimize the loss of water that released during the process of transpiration. The loss of water by stomata help the plants to remain cool. Also, stomata are involved in gas exchange in plants, their decrease in number will reduce the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange between plant and atmosphere . Although, researchers have seen that there will be less effect on the size of stomata

2. Yes, the stomata density could be used as a bioindicator of the carbon dioxide concentration. This is because , if the plants have many stomata present on the leaves, means that level of carbon dioxide is optimum in the atmosphere whereas if the number of carbon dioxide increases in atmosphere, the number of stomata decreases in number.