Effect of High Temperature on Carbohydrate Metabolism in Plants

Climate and weather influence cropping area, intensity, and yield in different ways. Farmers’ decision-making and technology modulate these influences. Improving our knowledge of climate influences on and management contributions to cropping area and intensity as well as yield is important to reduce the uncertainty of future climate change impacts on crop production and develop more targeted climate adaptation responses. It may facilitate the development of strategies to deal with the influence of typhoons, heavy rain, floods, and hail storms on cropping systems, or the influence of early snow melt on the ability to operate farm machinery, issues which have hitherto received far less attention compared to developing strategies to deal with the influence of extreme heat stress and/or drought on crop yields. Most plants show considerable capacity to adjust their photosynthetic characteristics to their growth temperatures (temperature acclimation). The most typical case is a shift in the optimum temperature for photosynthesis, which can maximize the photosynthetic rate at the growth temperature. These plastic adjustments can allow plants to photosynthesize more efficiently at their new growth temperatures. There are differences in photosynthetic reactions in C3, C4, and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants. The inherent ability for temperature acclimation of photosynthesis is different among C3, C4, and CAM species, and among functional types within C3 plants.