The ground breaking research, conducted by scientists at the University of Sheffield, revealed why plants using C4 photosynthesis — a complex set of structural and chemical adaptations that have evolved more than 60 times to
boost carbon uptake compared to the ancestral C3 plants — grow so rapidly.
Humankind could shrink its footprint down to size by dramatically
boosting the carbon uptake of the world's trees — by, for instance, replacing forests with plantations of fast - growing trees like eucalyptus.