Questions:

1) What is photorespiration?

Photorespiration is when rubisco carboxylates oxygen instead of carbon dioxide in the Calvin
Cycle, which is dangerous because photosynthesis can’t be properly performed.

2) What are stomata and what do they do?

Stomata are openings in the membranes of plants where water and gas go through. Stomata
allow for carbon dioxide to come in and oxygen to come out for photosynthesis. 

3) How does temperature affect plants?

Hot and dry temperatures can cause the stomata of plants to close during the day, which can
cause problems in the light reactions and the Calvin cycle by causing O2 to build up from the
light reactions and CO2 to be depleted from the Calvin cycle.

4) What are mesophyll and bundle sheath cells?

The mesophyll is the interior tissue of the leaf. Both cells are used during C4 photosynthesis
where carbon fixation is physically separated from the Calvin cycle. Within the mesophyll cell
(outer cell), the light reactions and carbon fixation occur, and CO2 is pumped to the inner cell.
Within the bundle-sheath cell (inner cell), the Calvin cycle occurs and glucose is produced and
transferred to the vascular tissue.

5) Where are CAM and C4 plants found?

CAM and C4 are both found in hotter and drier climates where their cells had to adapt in order
to effectively process photosynthesis.

6) What is Rubisco? Where is it found in the cell? How abundant is it?

Rubisco (ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase) is a carbon fixation enzyme. It is found essentially

everywhere in the cell, and because of that it is coined as the “most important enzyme in the
world”. The enzymes reside in every chloroplast, functioning in every ongoing Calvin Cycle,
throughout all mesophyll cells of the plant in the leaves of every plant. Rubisco is the most
abundant enzyme in the leaves of plants.

7) Why is photorespiration bad for a plant cell?

Rather than bonding the carbon molecule to RuBP in the plant, when the concentration of O2 in
the plant is too high Rubisco will bond the oxygen molecules to RuBP, and, effectively, causing
the oxidation of RuBP.

8) What pathway do CAM plants use?

CAM plants open their stomata at night instead of the daytime. 

9) Name 3 examples of CAM plants.

Cacti, succulents, pineapples

10) What pathway do C4 plants use?

C4 plants initially attach CO 2 to PEP (phosphoenolpyruvate) to form the four-carbon compound

OAA (oxaloacetate) using the enzyme PEP carboxylase. OAA is then pumped to another set of
cells, the bundle sheath cells, which surround the leaf vein. There, it releases the CO2 for use
by Rubisco.

11) Name 2 examples of C4 plants.

Corn and sugarcane

12) How are CAM and C4 plants different?

They are different because C4 plants use two different cells to separate carbon fixation and the
Calvin cycle while CAM plants only do carbon fixation at night and the Calvin cycle during the
day.