Global temperatures may be on the rise, but plants are drinking and sweating less water. This plant-tissue response to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is having a significant trickle-down effect, a new study finds.
Plants control carbon dioxide intake by opening and closing tiny pores, called stomata, in their leaves. During photosynthesis, they open the stomata to take in carbon dioxide and, inevitably, release some water vapor in the process. How much water is lost when plants sweat, or transpire, in this way affects how much water the plants pull out of the soil.