Re: Colors of alien plants -- Scientific American

On Apr 17, 11:21=A0am, mkkuh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Mary K.
Kuhner) wrote:

> Drop a 10% plant into our 1% biosphere and it should provide lots of
> story potential--kudzu to the nth power....

Put in a more efficient plant into our ecosystem, perhaps... but
there's a lot more involved than the efficiency of fixing sunlight
into usable chemical forms. Increasing that efficiency will only
increase the growth rate *if nothing else is limiting it*, which
doesn't seem to be the case, or you would see strong selection
pressure for highly-efficient photosynthesis. More often, it's lack of
a trace mineral or substance that is limiting growth (why you apply
fertilizer instead of mirrors to your crops.

If you want another interesting "optimise the plants" scenario, look
at RuBisCo, or C3 vs C4 vs CAM systems. I'd say C4 is significantly
more "efficient", but C3 can outcompete it in plenty of niches.

It's not that easy to make super-Kudzu. Heck, the thing that comes to
mind to me is strawberries in "Flying to Valhalla" by Pellegrino.

--
Brian Davis