exploring the inner workings of plants
Posted in Plant Stress on Apr 6th, 2010
“Near-Death Experience” One of the main problems for plants when they colonized terrestrial environments on Earth nearly a half billion years ago was how to survive the dryness. Today, much of a typical vascular plant’s anatomy, morphology and physiology is dedicated to obtaining and retaining water. Although most vascular plants can tolerate brief periods (hours [...]
Posted in Plant Stress on Feb 4th, 2010
The End of Winter? We experienced a relatively warm January here in western Washington (record-setting, in fact). Some daffodils are already coming up and the witch hazels are blooming. But most of the trees haven’t started to leaf out because they haven’t yet emerged from winter dormancy. Most woody perennial plants (mainly trees and shrubs) [...]
Posted in Plant Stress on Jan 7th, 2010
Plants Can’t Come In From The Cold Imagine for a moment that you had to stand outside your house or apartment, without moving, all winter long…and that you were naked. How long do you think you could last? Not long, especially if the temperature went below freezing. And certainly not if the temperature went below [...]
Posted in Plant Signaling, Plant Stress, Secondary Compounds on Apr 23rd, 2009
It Depends on How You Define “Immune System” Plants get sick. That is, they can be infected by pathogens. But after hundreds of millions of years of pathogen attacks, plants are still here. So, they must have ways to get well after being sick. Plants can defend themselves against disease-causing organisms (pathogens) such as viruses, [...]
Posted in CO2, Photosynthesis, Plant Hormones, Plant Stress on Feb 12th, 2009
As previously mentioned….if most climatologists are correct, then parts of the Earth’s surface may experience increasing episodes of heat and drought as a result of global “weirding”. (see here for a current example) Some of the effects of heat on photosynthesis was considered in part 1 of this post. But what about drought (a.k.a., long [...]
Posted in CO2, Photosynthesis, Plant Stress on Feb 12th, 2009
If most climatologists are correct, then parts of the Earth’s surface may experience increasing episodes of heat and drought as a result of global “weirding”. (see here for a current example) In a previous post in this blog, I briefly introduced the complex subject of how increasing atmospheric CO2 may affect plant photosynthesis. There is [...]
Posted in Plant Cell Walls, Plant Development, Plant Stress on Dec 21st, 2008
Devil-may-care and out-of-control plants. A couple of reports in the science news this week seem to suggest that one way to cope with global climate change may be unbridled plant growth. One has to do with the discovery of a cellular regulator for the synthesis of cellulose by plant cells. The other involves plants’ natural [...]
Posted in Photosynthesis, Plant Stress, Secondary Compounds on Nov 24th, 2008
Can humans measure photosynthesis on a global scale? Since plants consume CO2 during photosynthesis, one way is to measure the relative amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) using satellites (click on photo at left for more info). But plants also release CO2 as a product of respiration. This has confounded efforts to accurately measure photosynthesis [...]
Posted in Plant Stress on Oct 18th, 2008
Are plants likely to be more heat stressed in the future? The levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are increasing in Earth’s atmosphere. This, most climate scientists agree, is resulting in global warming. Among the environmental effects of global warming are higher frequencies of extreme heat-waves. Unusually high temperatures, especially [...]
Posted in Plant Stress, Secondary Compounds on Sep 19th, 2008
What do wintergreen lifesavers have to do with stressed plants? And what is a “stressed” plant, anyway? A plant that’s “stressed” has usually been injured by the physical (cold, heat, drought) or biological (insects, disease-causing microbes) environment. Such stress often causes the plant to produce an array of defensive compounds. Some of these compounds may [...]
HowPlantsWork Weblog
exploring the inner workings of plants
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