Plants, unlike many other organisms, are broadly and nearly uniformly able to survive extreme drought for long periods of time call desiccation. Desiccation tollerance is a characteristic that practically all species of plant have, although it may depend on the stage in the life cycle of the individual. Desiccation is thought to be an unfavorable process in total because plants that must endure constant drying out and rehydrating must make up for all nightly respiration with a short period of photosynthesis in the daytime prior to full day heat and light that causes water loss. This means that if the photosynthetic gains do not out weight the nightly repiration losses, then a net loss of energy occurs and cannot be sustained.
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