The Importance Of Climate Change

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Climate change has been happening for many years and it continues to do so. It is a significant change in regards to the distribution of weather patterns over a given time frame such as decades or millennia. In recent times, the climate change is called “global warming” and it has been linked to certain human activities (NRC 2010). This shows that climate change is not limited to biotic factors. In a general sense, these changes have the potential to impact populations and ecosystems due to alterations in the water cycle. Climate change impacts includes too little water in some regions while too much water in other regions. Changes in precipitation patterns can influence plant physiology and thereby affect the rates of photosynthesis. Such patterns include drought in which warmer temperatures increase evaporative stress on a plant and increased rain or frequency of storms can influence water uptake by plants. Under both conditions, there is a change in photosynthetic rates. Photosynthesis allows the plant to accumulate carbon, grow and produce biomass (Niu et al. 2008). Therefore, a change in photosynthetic rates can be either beneficial or harmful to a plant. The effects of altered precipitation patterns on photosynthetic rates is significant to the scientific field because it gives insight on the shifts in plant community composition and how it affects the water availability for human and ecosystem uses (Kray et al. 2012). In addition, understanding the connection between water relations and photosynthesis with respect to changes in precipitation patterns could help with management decisions of ecosystems, where climate change indicates alterations in species composition, in water availability for wildlife and in fire regimes (L...

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...drought is a more serious case in which plants have to either acclimate or adapt to the environmental condition in which it is living in to combat the heat stress. Deep root systems and early stomatal closure are a couple strategies that plants use to increase water uptake and decrease transpirational water loss. During rainfall, plants have more water available to them because of the increase in soil water potential and stomatal conductance. Frequency in precipitation pulses allows the plant to photosynthesize and transpire in moderation. An aim for future research is to study plant physiology at the community and ecosystem levels to further understand the water and carbon budgets (Loik 2007). A plant behavior under extreme drought conditions or increased rainfall variability can help predict future changes in CO2 assimilation and help preserve plant ecosystems.

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