What are the differences between these plants?

Question

does anyone know what are the differences between C3, C4 and CAM plants?? which one of them is more efficiency?? and can you plzz give examples on each kind??

Answer 1

Try visitn Wikipedia.com

Answer 2

Most plants are C3.

C4 Is a more efficient system of photosyntesis in warmer climates. Most C4 plants are tropical grasses or other monocots.

The terms refer to the number of carbon atoms in the first carbohydrate synthesised by the plant from carbon dioxide and water.

I know a lot about CAM. It stands for Crassulaic Acid Metabolism. CAM is a very efficient way to photosynthesise in the desert and other very dry environments, but not many plants have evolved to use it. Most desert plants lose a lot of water because they have to absorb carbon dioxide through their stomata during the day, while they are using carbon dioxide to photosynthesise. CAM plants however are able to open their stomata only at night, when rates of evaporation are much lower, and the carbon dioxide they absorb is stored chemically in their cells until it is needed during the day.

I find this whole area very interesting.

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Typical examples:

C3 - Solanum tuberosum (Potato)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato

C4 - Zea mays (Maize)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize

CAM - Crassula ovata (The Jade Plant)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Plant

Answer 3

Are you the same person that asked this question last week? If not I spent a lot of time on that for another so it is worth looking up in answered questions. There is actually a surprising amount of info on all 3 of the pathways in wikipedia, and it really rivals some of my best text book information from the university courses I have taken. Give it a try. It is, in this case, valid and correct info. Wikipedia generally is very good and worth using on most anything.