In my mind, this strongly supports the idea that RL, which is mostly accounted for by the G6P shunt flux, is being used as a way of ensuring that the CBC doesn't collapse under varying light conditions.

I think this is a very nice dataset for people to reference for their own work, but for my part, I find the stability of respiration in the light (RL) and fluxes through the G6P shunt most interesting.

We validate some of our model predictions with field measurements and predict substantial synergy between AMF and rhizobia under some soil nutrient conditions.

As do I! I used Calvin-Benson there because it’s what Tom uses in that article, but I think Bassham should be included (or, the cycle should be referred to by a biochemical descriptor instead of using people’s names).

I used to be a RuBisCO person, but other researchers in Plant Bio at Michigan State University (Tom Sharkey being the main one) convinced me to go with rubisco. Tom provides a succinct and convincing argument in “Discovery of the canonical Calvin-Benson cycle” in Photosynthesis Research.

Is this the secret to having proper, dedicated paper reading time?

Just realized this link doesn't work yet! Here's a working one: academic.oup.com/plphys/advan...

If that sounds interesting, give the article a read! I had a lot of fun working on the modeling for this study and think there may be some interesting methodological points for other modelers to consider even if they don't work on CCMs. Particularly the surrogate modeling approach we used.

Well, Anne, together with measurements from Doug Orr at Lancaster, provides definitive proof in this manuscript that C. merolae really is concentrating carbon. And we explore the possibility space of how it might do this sans pyrenoid using kinetic modeling exploring a huge parameter space.

This is a double head scratcher because microscopy shows that C. merolae doesn't have a pyrenoid. So, it's in a weird acid bath and it doesn't have an obvious diffusion barrier for CO2. What gives?

My colleague Anne Steensma had previously shown that C. merolae likely operates a CCM. Low pH is an interesting place for an alga to use a Carbon Concentrating Mechanism (CCM), since bicarbonate, which is a convenient charged species that has difficulty moving across membranes, is in short supply.

The red alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae lives in volcanic hot springs with high temps and low, low pH. Fun fact: these little fellas were first isolated about a 30-minute drive from Lake Avernus, which is the location of the gate to the underworld in The Aeneid.