scholarly journals Vine tendrils use contact chemoreception to avoid conspecific leaves

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1850) ◽  
pp. 20162650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuya Fukano
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Growth Habit ◽  
Plastic Response ◽  
Contact Chemoreception ◽  
Climbing Plants ◽  
Cayratia Japonica

Movement and growth habit of climbing plants have attracted attention since the time of Charles Darwin; however, there are no reports on whether plants can choose suitable hosts or avoid unsuitable ones based on chemoreception. Here, I show that the tendrils of Cayratia japonica (Vitaceae) appear to avoid conspecific leaves using contact chemoreception for oxalates, which are highly concentrated in C. japonica leaves. The coiling experiments show that C. japonica has a flexible plastic response to avoid coiling around conspecific leaves. The coiling response is negatively correlated with the oxalate content in the contacted leaves. Experiments using laboratory chemicals indicate that the tendrils avoid oxalate-coated plastic sticks. These results indicate that the tendrils of C. japonica avoid coiling around a conspecific leaf based on contact chemoreception for oxalate compounds. The tendrils of climbing plants may function as a chemoreceptor system to detect the chemical cues of a contacted plant.

scholarly journals Flexible control of movement in plants

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Guerra ◽  
Alessandro Peressotti ◽  
Francesca Peressotti ◽  
Maria Bulgheroni ◽  
Walter Baccinelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Unsolved Problem ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Flexible Control ◽  
Climbing Plants ◽  
Climbing Plant ◽  
And Control ◽  
Approach Phase

Abstract Although plants are essentially sessile in nature, these organisms are very much in tune with their environment and are capable of a variety of movements. This may come as a surprise to many non-botanists, but not to Charles Darwin, who reported that plants do produce movements. Following Darwin’s specific interest on climbing plants, this paper will focus on the attachment mechanisms by the tendrils. We draw attention to an unsolved problem in available literature: whether during the approach phase the tendrils of climbing plants consider the structure of the support they intend to grasp and plan the movement accordingly ahead of time. Here we report the first empirical evidence that this might be the case. The three-dimensional (3D) kinematic analysis of a climbing plant (Pisum sativum L.) demonstrates that the plant not only perceives the support, but it scales the kinematics of tendrils’ aperture according to its thickness. When the same support is represented in two-dimensions (2D), and thus unclimbable, there is no evidence for such scaling. In these circumstances the tendrils’ kinematics resemble those observed for the condition in which no support was offered. We discuss these data in light of the evidence suggesting that plants are equipped with sensory mechanisms able to provide the necessary information to plan and control a movement.

scholarly journals Inbreeding depression in adaptive plasticity under predation risk in a freshwater snail

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh R. Auld ◽  
Rick A. Relyea
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Predation Risk ◽  
Inbreeding Depression ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Freshwater Snail ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Plastic Response ◽  
Physa Acuta

While much attention has been paid to the effects of inbreeding on fitness, this has mostly come from a genetic perspective. Consequently, the interaction between inbreeding and the environment is less well understood. To understand the effects of inbreeding in natural populations where environmental conditions are variable, we need to examine not only how the effects of inbreeding change among environments but also how inbreeding may affect the ability to respond to environmental conditions (i.e. phenotypic plasticity). We reared selfed and outcrossed hermaphroditic snails ( Physa acuta ) in the presence and absence of chemical cues from predatory crayfish and quantified expression of an inducible defence, an adaptively plastic response to predation risk. Overall, inbred snails exhibited reduced defences, but more importantly, inbreeding reduced the expression of predator-induced adaptive plasticity. Inbreeding depression in defensive morphology was 26 per cent and inbreeding depression in the plasticity of this trait was 48 per cent. Inbreeding depression in adaptive plasticity may be important to understanding the effects of inbreeding in nature.

The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae): Orientation to Aggregation Sites

2000 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Nalepa ◽  
K. A. Kidd ◽  
D. I. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Harmonia Axyridis ◽  
Lady Beetle ◽  
Aggregation Pheromones ◽  
Mail Order ◽  
Contact Chemoreception ◽  
Asian Lady Beetle ◽  
Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle ◽  
Harmonia Axyridis Pallas ◽  
Over Time

Several studies were conducted to determine the cues used by the lady beetle Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) when orienting to aggregation sites in autumn: (1) artificial shelters modeled after those commercially available in mail order catalogues were baited with live adults and hung on the outside of buildings known from past years to be aggregation sites, (2) differential arrival of the two sexes at overwintering sites was examined by collecting and sexing the beetles alighting on buildings at two points in time during the aggregation period, and (3) the distribution of overwintering H. axyridis among beehives was determined in ten apiaries. Results indicate no preference for the artificial shelters and no orientation to the conspecifics within them. Sex ratios of beetles arriving at aggregation sites were consistent over time in two of the three sites examined. During winter, adult H. axyridis were non-randomly distributed among physically similar beehives. We conclude that there is little evidence for volatile aggregation pheromones and suggest that the chemical cues that mediate the final stages of aggregation behavior in H. axyridis may be based on contact chemoreception with conspecifics or the feces and residues that persist in aggregation sites from previous years.

scholarly journals A study On Support Selection Mechanism In Tendrils of Cayratia Japonica

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuya Saito
Keyword(s):  
Motion Tracking ◽  
Contact Point ◽  
Large Diameter ◽  
Negative Association ◽  
Branching Pattern ◽  
Selection Mechanism ◽  
Climbing Plants ◽  
Climbing Plant ◽  
Cayratia Japonica ◽  
Different Diameters

Abstract Organisms make decisions when they perceive cues of varying intensities. In case of climbing plants, the diameter of supports in contact (tree or stem) is an important cue for their growth as plants that coil around a support with large diameter are unable to maintain tensional forces required for continued attachment to the support. The negative association between the diameter and the climbing success has been reported since Darwin published his study on climbing plants. However, it is not known if a climbing plant makes a decision to avoid a support with larger diameter. Here, we tested this possibility by observing the coiling response of tendrils of Cayratia japonica to supports with different diameters. The coiling success of the tendrils was affected by the diameter of the support and the tendril lengths. We described the branching pattern of coiling response and demonstrated that the tendrils change their coiling shape depending on the support diameter and the tendril length. To understand the behavioural rules regulating the branching, we constructed a simple model with two assumptions on the tendril movement, (1) when the tendrils receive a contact stimulus, they begin to coil from around the contact point and (2) there is a minimum coiling angle at which the tendrils coil up, once the tendril starts coiling. Image analysis and 3D motion tracking technique revealed that the movement of the tendrils were consistent with the two assumptions of the model. The results suggested that the tendrils flexibly changed the coiling shapes depending on the support diameter and simple behavioural rules could regulate this diameter-dependent response.

Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy of Polyethylene Crystals

1980 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 242-245
Author(s):  
F. Khoury ◽  
L. H. Bolz
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽  
Crystallization Temperature ◽  
Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽  
Growth Habit ◽  
Lateral Growth ◽  
Scanning Transmission Electron ◽  
Transmission Electron ◽  
Scanning Transmission ◽  
Growth Habits

The lateral growth habits and non-planar conformations of polyethylene crystals grown from dilute solutions (<0.1% wt./vol.) are known to vary depending on the crystallization temperature.1-3 With the notable exception of a study by Keith2, most previous studies have been limited to crystals grown at <95°C. The trend in the change of the lateral growth habit of the crystals with increasing crystallization temperature (other factors remaining equal, i.e. polymer mol. wt. and concentration, solvent) is illustrated in Fig.l. The lateral growth faces in the lozenge shaped type of crystal (Fig.la) which is formed at lower temperatures are {110}. Crystals formed at higher temperatures exhibit 'truncated' profiles (Figs. lb,c) and are bound laterally by (110) and (200} growth faces. In addition, the shape of the latter crystals is all the more truncated (Fig.lc), and hence all the more elongated parallel to the b-axis, the higher the crystallization temperature.

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