Update: Stomatal biology of CAM plants

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants open their stomata at night, decreasing water loss and increasing water-use efficiency as well as drought tolerance. Males and Griffiths review the stomatal biology of CAM plants as compared to C₃ plants. For example, CAM stomata are relatively insensitive to blue light, which is a powerful opening stimulus for C₃ stomata; conversely, CAM stomata appear to be more sensitive to plant water status and intercellular CO₂ levels than C₃ plants. However, deliniating differences between C₃ and CAM stomatal biology is complicated by the fact that CAM is a convergent trait that has evolved independently many times in diverse lineages. Facultative CAM plants,  which can switch from C₃ to CAM when conditions warrant, are promising models. A key objective of these studies is to investigate the possibility of engineering facultative CAM into C₃ plants to enable them to weather periods of drought. Plant Physiol. 10.1104/pp.16.01644