scholarly journals The movements and habits of climbing plants, by Charles Darwin.

1876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Darwin
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Climbing Plants

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 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.

The katydid that was: the tananá, stridulation, Henry Walter Bates and Charles Darwin

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio J. Bidau
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Bush Cricket

The Amazonian bush-cricket or katydid, Thliboscelus hypericifolius (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Pseudophyllinae), called tananá by the natives was reported to have a song so beautiful that they were kept in cages for the pleasure of listening to the melodious sound. The interchange of letters between Henry Walter Bates and Charles Darwin regarding the tananá and the issue of stridulation in Orthoptera indicates how this mysterious insect, which seems to be very rare, contributed to the theory of sexual selection developed by Darwin.

Darwin's two competing phylogenetic trees: marsupials as ancestors or sister taxa?

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. David Archibald
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
The Other ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
Single Origin ◽  
Molecular Studies ◽  
Richard Owen ◽  
First Time

Studies of the origin and diversification of major groups of plants and animals are contentious topics in current evolutionary biology. This includes the study of the timing and relationships of the two major clades of extant mammals – marsupials and placentals. Molecular studies concerned with marsupial and placental origin and diversification can be at odds with the fossil record. Such studies are, however, not a recent phenomenon. Over 150 years ago Charles Darwin weighed two alternative views on the origin of marsupials and placentals. Less than a year after the publication of On the origin of species, Darwin outlined these in a letter to Charles Lyell dated 23 September 1860. The letter concluded with two competing phylogenetic diagrams. One showed marsupials as ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals, whereas the other showed a non-marsupial, non-placental as being ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals. These two diagrams are published here for the first time. These are the only such competing phylogenetic diagrams that Darwin is known to have produced. In addition to examining the question of mammalian origins in this letter and in other manuscript notes discussed here, Darwin confronted the broader issue as to whether major groups of animals had a single origin (monophyly) or were the result of “continuous creation” as advocated for some groups by Richard Owen. Charles Lyell had held similar views to those of Owen, but it is clear from correspondence with Darwin that he was beginning to accept the idea of monophyly of major groups.

William Yarrell (1784–1856), friend and adviser to Charles Darwin

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-114
Author(s):  
Christine E. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Beagle Voyage

For 25 years, from 1831 into 1856, the English zoologist William Yarrell was both a friend and adviser to Charles Darwin. He was regarded by Darwin as a wise and eminent naturalist of the older generation. Yarrell was part of a small group of naturalists, including Leonard Jenyns and John Stevens Henslow, whose interests in ornithology, entomology and geology expanded over the years. Their knowledge helped to support publication of the results of the HMS Beagle voyage and to inform Darwin while he was developing his hypotheses on evolution before the publication of On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859.

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