Assessment of the Contributions of Metabolic Pathways to Plant Respiration

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the methods available for measuring total consumption of substrate during plant respiration and the contributions of individual pathways to that total. It also discusses the rather limited extent to which the use of such methods allows to describe the respiration of higher plants quantitatively. The roles of the different respiratory pathways or their relationship to the rest of metabolism and the physiology of the plant as a whole cannot be assessed until the flow through these pathways is measured. Respiration fulfills two essentially competitive roles. These are the oxidation of substrates to provide energy and the conversion of substrates to intermediates required for biosyntheses. Thus, respiration is inextricably entangled with the rest of the metabolism of the plant. Carbohydrate, lipid, and protein are commonly accepted as the substrates of plant respiration.