Tag: cam cycle

• Crassulacean acid metabolism, also known as CAM photosynthesis, is a carbon fixation pathway that evolved in some plants as an adaptation to arid conditions.
•  At low temperatures (frequently at night), plants using CAM open their stomata, CO2 molecules diffuse into the spongy mesophyll's intracellular spaces and then into the cytoplasm. Here, they can meet phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), the CO2 acceptor.
• Hence, In CAM plants, the acceptor of CO2 is Phosphoenolpyruvate. 
•  So, the correct answer is 'Phosphoenol pyruvate'.

Spatial separation of carbon dioxide fixation and RUBISCO activity in mesophyll and bundle sheath cells of $C _4$ plants respectively avoids photorespiration by concentrating $CO _2$ in bundle sheath cells to scale down the oxygenase activity of RUBISCO and increase the RUBISCO efficiency. The increased RUBISCO efficiency allows higher rates of photosynthesis even when stomata are closed for the longer time as well as reduces photorespiration and water loss. CAM plants reduce water loss by opening the stomata at night only. Mycorrhizae are the symbiotic fungi that reside in roots of higher plants and increase soil fertility by nitrogen fixation; it does not impart any adaptive feature to plant to cope with hot and dry conditions. 

$C _4$ and CAM  plants are plants that use certain special compounds to gather carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) during photosynthesis. Exploitation of dry and arid habitats required adaptations in the form of $C _4$ and CAM photosynthesis, which independently evolved many times during periods of low atmospheric $CO _2$ levels carried out by carried out by a non-rubisco enzyme, PEP carboxylase, that has no tendency to bind $O _2$.