Cercospora zeae-maydis causes gray leaf spot of maize, which has become one of the most widespread and destructive diseases of maize in the world. C. zeae-maydis infects leaves through stomata, which is predicated on the ability of the pathogen to perceive stomata and reorient growth accordingly. In this study, the discovery that light was required for C. zeae-maydis to perceive stomata and inf...

Stomata are crucial in land plant productivity and survival. In general, with lower irradiance, stomatal and epidermal cell frequency per unit leaf area decreases, whereas guard-cell length or width increases. Nevertheless, the stomatal index is accepted as remaining constant. The aim of this paper to study the influence of ordinary epidermal cells and stomata on leaf plasticity and the influen...

Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, posses a specialised efflux organ in the centre of their leaves, which connects the gas canals in the leaves and stems with the atmosphere through the apertures of large stomata. The role of these large central plate stomata in regulating air flow through the gas canals were examined on excised leaves and on intact plants in situ. The stomata show a diurnal cycle, closi...

Stomata, flanked by pairs of guard cells, are small pores on the leaf surfaces of plants and they function to control gas exchange between plants and the atmosphere. Stomata will open when water is available to allow for the uptake of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. During periods of drought, stomata will close to reduce desiccation stress. As such, optimal functioning of stomata will impact...

Stomatal guard cells regulate plant photosynthesis and transpiration. Central to the control of seed plant stomatal movement is the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA); however, differences in the sensitivity of guard cells to this ubiquitous chemical have been reported across land plant lineages. Using a phylogenetic approach to investigate guard cell control, we examined the diversity of stomata...

Williams (6, 7) was the first to observe that epidermal strips taken from the area of leaf enclosed by an unswept porometer cup show much wider stomatal pores than elsewhere. Heath's experiments with Pelargonium and wheat (4, 5) showed that sweeping the porometer cup with dry or humid air caused considerable closure of the stomata as compared with the areas in still air. In a repetition of Knig...

The fossil record suggests stomata-like pores were present on the surfaces of land plants over 400 million years ago. Whether stomata arose once or whether they arose independently across newly evolving land plant lineages has long been a matter of debate. In Arabidopsis, a genetic toolbox has been identified that tightly controls stomatal development and patterning. This includes the basic hel...

Stomata arranged in crypts with trichomes are commonly considered to be adaptations to aridity due to the additional diffusion resistance associated with this arrangement; however, information on the effect of crypts on gas exchange, relative to stomata, is sparse. In this study, three-dimensional Finite Element models of encrypted stomata were generated using commercial Computational Fluid Dyn...

Hawaiian plants exposed to volcanic sulfur dioxide showed interspecific differences in leaf injury that are related to sulfur dioxide-induced changes in stomatal condutance. Species with leaves that did not close stomata developed either chlorosis or necrosis, whereas leaves of Metrosideros collina closed stomata and showed no visual symptoms of sulfur dioxide stress.

Plants have stomata, mouth-like pores on their surface, to adjust to environmental changes such as temperature and humidity to ensure optimum physiology and metabolism. A new study adds a key player, SERK, to the signal-sensing apparatus to inform where stomata are to be formed on the leaf.