Not all plants use the C4 or CAM pathways to avoid photorespiration because they require a lot of extra energy to perform their function. In photosynthesis, minimizing water loss is essential; C4 plants relocate the carbon dioxide to lessen photorespiration while CAM plants indicates when to extract carbon dioxide. Their function is also related to plants survival where C4 plants is usually a summer plant while CAM plants is suited to thrive in desserts. Therefore, only plants that need special requirement to survival use these pathways.