Photosynthesis and metabolism in seagrasses at the cellular level

Abstract

Seagrasses are marine angiosperms from the Families Potamagetonaceae and Hydrocharitaceae (Chapter 1). These are by origin land plants that developed both aerial photosynthesis and aerial flowering and then returned to a successful fully submerged marine habitat, from where their algal forbears derived. Following the evolution of land plants there have been few developments in terms of photosynthesis: the only outstanding developments being adaptations to arid conditions, such as the development of C4 photosynthesis in semi-arid plants and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) in plants from desert regions (Bowes et al. 2002). © 2006/2007 Springer. All Rights Reserved.