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Notes: Aims. To examine the uptake and course of smoking in a representative adolescent cohort. Design. Six-wave cohort study. Participants. Secondary school students initially aged 14-15 years at 44 schools in the state of Victoria, Australia. Measurements. Computerized questionnaire including 7-day retrospective recall for tobacco use. Findings. Prevalence rates for smoking in the past month rose from 25% to 31% and daily smoking 9% to 18% across the 3-year follow-up. Forty-five per cent of the sample smoked at some point but only 18% were daily smokers at the end-point. High rates of short-term cessation were observed for both experimental and daily smokers, but 70% of daily smokers relapsed within 12 months. Occasional smoking at the outset was the strongest predictor of later daily smoking and was also predictive of lower cessation and higher relapse rates. Parental divorce and parental daily smoking were associated with smoking at the outset and parental smoking was strongly predictive of the course of daily smoking. In contrast, prevalence rates of smoking in a subject's school did not significantly predict either smoking initiation or subsequent course. Female daily smokers were half as likely as males to cease smoking, a finding that accounted for gender differences in smoking prevalence in this sample. Conclusions. The strength of association between occasional and later daily smoking indicates the importance of primary prevention but the variability in the early course indicates that there should be much scope for promotion of adolescent efforts to quit. Both the diminished likelihood of smoking cessation in young women and parental influences on smoking course deserve further exploration.

Notes: Dieting in adolescent girls is ubiquitous but its health significance is uncertain. On the one hand it might be seen as promoting healthy weight control and on the other it might be considered as a risk, factor for eating disorders. Dieting levels were systematically assessed in a representative group of 252? Australian teenagers and classified using item response theory. In this group, 38% of girls and 12 % of boys we re categorised as intermediate dieters; 7% of girls and 1% of boys fell into a group of extreme dieters. Body mass carried a strong post the association with intermediate dieting. Most female dieters, nevertheless, fell within a normal weight range. Psychiatric morbidity was the clearest factor associated with extreme dieting and 62 % of extreme dieters reported high levels of depression and anxiety. Extreme dieting might reasonably be viewed as lying on a spectrum with clinical eating disorders. Most dieting is unjustified on the grounds of appropriate weight control and appears to reflect a widespread striving of teenage girls towards body shapes at the lower end of age-adjusted norms.

Notes: Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) Royle exhibits an inducible C4-type photosynthetic cycle, but lacks Kranz anatomy. Leaves in the C4-type state (but not C3-type) contained up to 5-fold higher internal dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations than the medium, indicating that they possessed a CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM). Several lines of evidence indicated that the chloroplast was the likely site of CO2 generation. From C4-type leaf [DIC] measurements, the estimated chloroplastic free [CO2] was 400 mmol m−3. This gave a calculated 2% O2 inhibition of photosynthesis, which was identical to the measured value, and provided independent evidence that the estimated [CO2] was close to the true value. A homogeneous distribution of DIC in the C4-type leaf could not account for such a high [CO2], or the resultant low O2 inhibition. For C3-type leaves the estimated chloroplastic [CO2] was only 7 mmol m−3, which gave high, and similar, calculated and measured O2 inhibition values of 22 and 26%, respectively. The CCM did not appear to be located at the plasma membrane, as it operated at low and high pH, indicating that it was independent of use of HCO3− from the medium. Also, both C3− and C4-type Hydrilla leaves showed pH polarity in the light, with abaxial and adaxial boundary layer values of about pH 4·0 and 10·5, respectively. Thus, pH polarity was not a direct component of the CCM, though it probably improved access to HCO3. Additionally, iodoacetamide and methyl viologen greatly reduced abaxial acidification, but not the steady-state CCM. Inhibitor studies suggested that the CCM required photosynthetically generated ATP, but Calvin cycle activity was not essential. Both leaf types accumulated DIC in the dark by an ATP-requiring process, possibly respiration, and C4-type leaves fixed CO2 at 11·8% of the light rate. The operation of a CCM to minimize photorespiration, and the ability to recapture respiratory CO2 at night, would conserve DIC in a densely vegetated lake environment where daytime [CO2] is severely limiting, while [O2] and temperatures are high.

Notes: Abstract. The global uptake of CO2 in photosynthesis is about 120 gigatons (Gt) of carbon per year. Virtually all passes through one enzyme, ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco), which initiates both the photosynthetic carbon reduction, and photorespiratory carbon oxidation, cycles. Both CO2 and O2 are substrates; CO2 also activates the enzyme. In C3 plants, rubisco has a low catalytic activity, operates below its Km (CO2), and is inhibited by O2. Consequently, increases in the CO2/O2 ratio stimulate C3 photosynthesis and inhibit photorespiration. CO2 enrichment usually enhances the productivity of C3 plants, but the effect is marginal in C4 species. It also causes acclimation in various ways: anatomically, morphologically, physiologically or biochemically. So, CO2 exerts secondary effects in growth regulation, probably at the molecular level, that are not predictable from its primary biochemical role in carboxylation. After an initial increase with CO2 enrichment, net photosynthesis often declines. This is a common acclimation phenomenon, less so in field studies, that is ultimately mediated by a decline in rubisco activity, though the RuBP/Pi-regeneration capacities of the plant may play a role. The decline is due to decreased rubisco protein, activation state, and/or specific activity, and it maintains the rubisco fixation and RuBP/Pi regeneration capacities in balance. Carbohydrate accumulation is sometimes associated with reduced net photosynthesis, possibly causing feedback inhibition of the RuBP/Piregeneration capacities, or chloroplast disruption. As exemplified by field-grown soybeans and salt marsh species, a reduction in net photosynthesis and rubisco activity is not inevitable under CO2 enrichment. Strong sinks or rapid translocation may avoid such acclimation responses. Over geological time, aquatic autotrophs and terrestrial C4 and CAM plants have genetically adapted to a decline in the external CO2/O2 ratio, by the development of mechanisms to concentrate CO2 internally; thus circumventing O2 inhibition of rubisco. Here rubisco affinity for CO2 is less, but its catalytic activity is greater, a situation compatible with a high-CO2 internal environment. In aquatic autotrophs, the CO2 concentrating mechanisms acclimate to the external CO2, being suppressed at high-CO2. It is unclear, whether a doubling in atmospheric CO2 will be sufficient to cause a de-adaptive trend in the rubisco kinetics of future C3 plants, producing higher catalytic activities.

Notes: Abstract. The effects were studied of season-long (75 and 88d) exposure of rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. IR-30) to a range of atmospheric CO2 concentrations in outdoor, computer-controlled, environment chambers under natural solar radiation. The CO2 concentrations were maintained at 160, 250, 330, 500, 660 and 900μmol mol-1 air. Photosynthesis increased with increasing growth CO2 concentrations up to 500u.mol moP1, but levelled off at higher CO2 values. Specific leaf area also increased significantly with increasing CO2. Although leaf dry weight and leaf area index increased, the overall response was not statistically significant. Leaf nitrogen content dropped slightly with elevated CO2, but the response was not statistically significant. The specific activity of ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (rubisco) declined significantly over the CO2 concentration range 160 to 900μmol mol-1. When expressed on a leaf area basis, rubisco activity decreased by 66%. This was accompanied by a 32% decrease in the amount of rubisco protein as a fraction of the total soluble leaf protein, and by 60% on a leaf area basis. For leaves in the dark, the total rubisco activity (CO2/Mg2+-activated) was reduced by more than 60%. This indicates that rice accumulated an inhibitor in the dark, probably 2-car-boxyarabinitol 1-phosphate (CA-1-P). However, the inhibitor did not seem to be involved in the acclimation response. The degree of carbamylation of the rubisco enzyme was unchanged by the CO2 growth regime, except at 900 [μmol mol-1 where it was reduced by 24%. The acclimation of rice to different atmospheric CO2 conditions involved the modulation of both the activity and amount of rubisco protein in the leaf.

Notes: Genetic modifications of agronomic crops will likely be necessary to cope with global climate change. This study tested the hypotheses that genotypic differences in rice (Oryza sativa L.) leaf photosynthesis at elevated [CO2] and temperature are related to protein and gene expression of Rubisco, and that high growth temperatures under elevated [CO2] negatively affect photosystem II (PSII) photochemical efficiency. Two rice cultivars representing an indica (cv. IR72) and japonica type (cv. M103) were grown in 350 (ambient) and 700 (elevated) µmol CO2 mol−1 at 28/18, 34/24 and 40/30 °C sinusoidal maximum/minimum, day/night temperatures in outdoor, sunlit, environment-controlled chambers. Leaf photosynthesis of IR72 favoured higher growth temperatures more than M103. Rubisco total activity and protein content were negatively affected in both genotypes by high temperatures and elevated CO2. However, at moderate to high growth temperatures, IR72 leaves averaged 71 and 39% more rbcS transcripts than M103 under ambient and elevated CO2, respectively, and likewise had greater Rubisco activity and protein content. Expression of psbA (D1 protein of PSII) in IR72 leaves increased with temperature, whereas it remained constant for M103, except for a 20% decline at 40/30 °C under elevated CO2. Even at the highest growth temperatures, PSII photochemical efficiency was not impaired in either genotype grown under either ambient or elevated CO2. Genotypic differences exist in rice for carboxylation responses to elevated CO2 and high temperatures, which may be useful in developing genotypes suited to cope with global climate changes.

Notes: Rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. IR-72) and soybean (Glycine max L. Merr. cv. Bragg), which have been reported to differ in acclimation to elevated CO2, were grown for a season in sunlight at ambient and twice-ambient [CO2], and under daytime temperature regimes ranging from 28 to 40°C. The objectives of the study were to test whether CO2 enrichment could compensate for adverse effects of high growth temperatures on photosynthesis, and whether these two C3 species differed in this regard. Leaf photosynthetic assimilation rates (A) of both species, when measured at the growth [CO2], were increased by CO2 enrichment, but decreased by supraoptimal temperatures. However, CO2 enrichment more than compensated for the temperature-induced decline in A. For soybean, this CO2 enhancement of A increased in a linear manner by 32–95% with increasing growth temperatures from 28 to 40°C, whereas with rice the degree of enhancement was relatively constant at about 60%, from 32 to 38°C. Both elevated CO2 and temperature exerted coarse control on the Rubisco protein content, but the two species differed in the degree of responsiveness. CO2 enrichment and high growth temperatures reduced the Rubisco content of rice by 22 and 23%, respectively, but only by 8 and 17% for soybean. The maximum degree of Rubisco down-regulation appeared to be limited, as in rice the substantial individual effects of these two variables, when combined, were less than additive. Fine control of Rubisco activation was also influenced by both elevated [CO2] and temperature. In rice, total activity and activation were reduced, but in soybean only activation was lowered. The apparent catalytic turnover rate (Kcat) of rice Rubisco was unaffected by these variables, but in soybean elevated [CO2] and temperature increased the apparent Kcat by 8 and 22%, respectively. Post-sunset declines in Rubisco activities were accelerated by elevated [CO2] in rice, but by high temperature in soybean, suggesting that [CO2] and growth temperature influenced the metabolism of 2-carboxyarabinitol-1-phosphate, and that the effects might be species-specific. The greater capacity of soybean for CO2 enhancement of A at supraoptimal temperatures was probably not due to changes in stomatal conductance, but may be partially attributed to less down-regulation of Rubisco by elevated [CO2] in soybean than in rice. However, unidentified species differences in the temperature optimum for photosynthesis also appeared to be important. The responses of photosynthesis and Rubisco in rice and soybean suggest that among C3 plants species-specific differences will be encountered as a result of future increases in global [CO2] and air temperatures.