How does a sunflower see the sun... A study describes a new mechanism

Arabia Weather - Sunflowers, those beautiful plants that are famous for always leaning towards the sun, have amazed scientists for a long time, and thanks to an impressive new study, an exciting mechanism has been revealed that explains how these flowers see and follow the sun.

The secret of sunflowers seeing the sun

It is known that sunflower plants turn towards the sun and follow it as it moves across the sky. However, how are these plants able to “see” the sun and follow it? A recent study by plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, published in the journal PLOS Biology on October 31 , revealed a new mechanism that differs from the previous concept.

Professor Stacy Harmer, professor of plant biology at the University of California, Davis, and lead author of the study, said:

"This was a big surprise for us."

Plants often exhibit a phenomenon called phototropism , which is defined as a plant's ability to grow toward a light source. Botanists had previously assumed that a sunflower's ability to follow the sun relied on the same basic mechanism found in most plants, which is a response to light through a molecule called a molecule called phototropism. Phototropin, which responds to light in the visual spectrum at the blue end.

The head of sunflowers moves slightly toward the east during the day and toward the west at night by undulating growth on the east and west sides of the stem. Previous research conducted in Professor Harmer's laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis, has shown how sunflowers benefit from their biological clock. Indoor plants to anticipate sunrise and to time the opening of their flowers with the appearance of pollinating insects in the morning.

The new study... The effect of lighting and environmental conditions on plant growth and behavior

In the new study , the researchers conducted experiments using sunflower plants in different conditions. Graduate student Christopher Brooks, in collaboration with postdoctoral researcher Hagatop Atamyan, and sponsored by Professor Stacy Harmer, studied the genes that were activated in sunflower plants grown inside growth chambers in laboratory, compared to sunflower plants that grow outdoors in the sun.

It turns out that sunflower plants grown indoors grew directly toward the light source, which led to the activation of genes related to phototropin. In contrast, a completely different gene expression pattern was observed in sunflower plants grown outdoors, whose heads swayed with the movement of the sun. The researchers noted that it did not There was no obvious difference in the phototropin level between the two sides of the plant.

Despite these findings, researchers have not yet identified the genes that play a role in the sun-following phenomenon.

In a related context, the effect of blocking specific wavelengths of light, such as blue light, ultraviolet light, red light, and far-red light, was tested using shadow boxes, and it was found that these different wavelengths did not clearly affect the response of sunflower plants to heliotropism, and this indicates There are multiple pathways that can respond to different wavelengths of light to achieve the same purpose, and future research will need to focus on how the protein is regulated in plants and its role in this process.

Finally, sunflower plants were shown to learn quickly. When the plants grown in the laboratory were moved outside, they began to follow the sun on the first day. It was observed that this behavior was accompanied by gene activation on the shaded side of the plant, which was not repeated in subsequent days. This indicates a mechanism that occurs in plants.

Apart from revealing new pathways for light sensing and growth in plants, this discovery is of broad importance, as it sheds light on the influence of environmental conditions on the behavior of plants and their response to light. Given that conditions in the natural environment can be different from those in growth chambers, it indicates Researchers point out that things that work in controlled conditions may not work the same way in the outside world.

Harmer pointed out that the discovery highlights the importance of research in this field, as it can help understand how plants adapt to their environment, and how their agriculture and sustainability can be improved, and this amazing discovery shows how great nature can provide understandable lessons for us, and inspire us to understand A deeper understanding of how organisms adapt to the world around them.

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Sources:

phys