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Dear Hikemeister, While I can’t turn you into a hot botanist, I can explain how C3 and C4 plants are different and suggest how their distribution might be expected to change with altitude. As I will best try to become your “Plants for Dummys” guide as it is crucial that you first have an understanding of the difference between C3 and C4 plants, to even remotely fool your plant lady guru. Firstly, the difference between C3 and C4 plants is that C3 plants form a pair of 3 carbon-atom molecules during CO2 assimilation while C4plants, which account for an abundance on higher regions of the mountain, form 4 carbon-atom molecules. By far the most important difference for rising CO2 levels is that C3 species continue to increase photosynthesis with rising CO2 while C4 does not. As you climb up the mountain, as I’m sure you noticed, the air becomes very dry and thin all due to the change in altitude. This is due to the enzyme used in C4 plants to convert CO2 into organic molecules known as PEP carboxylase, which has a high affinity only for CO2 - making it easier at fixing CO2 than C3 plants. Ultimately, this means that C4 plants don’t have to keep their stomata open as long as C3 plants in order to produce the exact same number of CO2 molecules, which are used to make ATP and glucose in the Calvin Cycle. As a result, as water loss is reduced, C4 plants become a much better fit to arid the “Three Sisters” of Alberta.

Hope this peaks both your interest and hers,
Dr. Bio

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