Carbon allocation in plants is generally partitioned between reserve accumulation and growth and development.
To test the role of fungal GH32 genes in determining the mode of C acquisition and allocation in plant-fungal symbiosis we have investigated the evolution of GH32 genes throughout the fungi using a phylogenetic approach.
Source-sink relationship and carbon allocation in plants are regulated by complex metabolic and signaling networks [ 23].
Imaging tools that measure photoassimilate transport and allocation in plants non-destructively on appropriate spatial and temporal scales will facilitate investigations of the genetic, biochemical, and physiological mechanisms underlying C-transport and C-allocation [ 12].
Our results show that, by optimizing certain parameters and accounting for geometry of plants, commercial PET scanners can be used reliably not only to measure C-allocation in plants but also to study dynamics in photoassimilate transport.
Although important aspects of whole-plant carbon allocation in crop plants (e.g., to grain) occur late in development when the plants are large, techniques to study carbon transport and allocation processes have not been adapted for large plants.
M. euphorbiae is expected to modify nitrogen allocation in tomato plants by competing with plant sinks and altering the amino acid composition of the phloem sap [ 83, 84].
Thus, increased invertase enzyme activity and the resultant decline in sucrose concentrations in sink tissues is intimately tied to phloem unloading and carbon allocation in the plant [ 3, 4].
Generally, these interactions seem to control resource allocation in the plant ensuring the maintenance of homeostasis and the adjustment of the host's metabolism to a state optimal to cope with the respective environmental challenges.
Activation of these defensive mechanisms requires energy and resources from primary metabolism and involves therefore a complex rearrangement of resource allocation in the plant, including altered photosynthesis and sink/source relations [ 5].
Allocation to reproduction responded to the presence of root neighbours (figure 2) but not to relatedness, with the greatest flowering allocation in solitary plants (least square means for individual plants: root neighbours=0.053, solitary plants 0.073; n=332, t=31.7, p<0.0013).
