Plant Response to Stimuli

Stimuli and a Stationary Life

 Plants, being rooted to the ground
• Must respond to whatever
environmental change comes their way
 For example, the bending of a grass
seedling toward light
• Begins with the plant sensing the
direction, quantity, and color of the light
 A potato left growing in darkness
• Will produce shoots that do not appear
healthy, and will lack elongated roots
 These are morphological adaptations
for growing in darkness
• Collectively referred to as etiolation
(a) Before exposure to light. A
dark-grown potato has tall,
spindly stems and nonexpanded
leaves—morphological
adaptations that enable the
shoots to penetrate the soil. The
roots are short, but there is little
need for water absorption
because little water is lost by the
shoots.
 After the potato is exposed to light
• The plant undergoes profound changes
called de-etiolation, in which shoots and
roots grow normally

(b) After a week’s exposure to

natural daylight. The potato
plant begins to resemble a
typical plant with broad green
leaves, short sturdy stems, and
long roots. This transformation
begins with the reception of
light by a specific pigment,
phytochrome.
 The Discovery of Plant
Hormones
 Any growth response
• That results in curvatures of whole plant
organs toward or away from a stimulus
is called a tropism
• Is often caused by hormones
A Survey of Plant Hormones
 In general, hormones control plant
growth and development
• By affecting the division, elongation, and
differentiation of cells
 Plant hormones are produced in very
low concentrations
• But a minute amount can have a
profound effect on the growth and
development of a plant organ
 Light Response
 Responses to light are critical for plant
success
 Light cues many key events in plant

growth and development

 Photomorphogenesis

• Is the effects of light on plant morphology

(structure)
 Plants not only detect the presence of
light
• But also its direction, intensity, and
wavelength (color)
 A graph called an action spectrum
• Depicts the relative response of a process
to different wavelengths of light
  Action spectra
• Are useful in the study of any process that
depends on light

EXPERIMENT Researchers exposed maize (Zea mays)

coleoptiles to violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red light
to test which wavelengths stimulate the phototropic bending
toward light.

RESULTS The graph below shows phototropic effectiveness

(curvature per photon) relative to effectiveness of light with a
wavelength of 436 nm. The photo collages show coleoptiles
before and after 90-minute exposure to side lighting of the
indicated colors. Pronounced curvature occurred only with
wavelengths below 500 nm and was greatest with blue light.

CONCLUSION The phototropic bending toward light is

caused by a photoreceptor that is sensitive to blue and
violet light, particularly blue light.
 Research on action spectra and
absorption spectra of pigments
• Led to the identification of two major
classes of light receptors: blue-light
photoreceptors and phytochromes
 Blue-Light Photoreceptors
 Various blue-light photoreceptors
• Control hypocotyl elongation, stomatal
opening, and phototropism
 Phytochromes as
Photoreceptors
 Phytochromes
• Regulate many of a plant’s responses to
light throughout its life
 The Effect of Light on the
Biological Clock
 Phytochrome conversion marks
sunrise and sunset
• Providing the biological clock with
environmental cues
 Photoperiodism and Responses
to Seasons
 Photoperiod, the relative lengths of
night and day
• Is the environmental stimulus plants use
most often to detect the time of year
 Photoperiodism
• Is a physiological response to photoperiod
 Photoperiodism and Control of
Flowering
 Some developmental processes,
including flowering in many species
• Requires a certain photoperiod
 Critical Night Length
EXPERIMENT During the 1940s, researchers conducted experiments in which periods of
darkness were interrupted with brief exposure to light to test how the light and dark
portions of a photoperiod affected flowering in “short-day” and “long-day” plants.
RESULTS
Darkness

Flash of

24 hours
light

Critical
dark
period
Light

(b) “Long-day” plants

(a) “Short-day” plants flowered only if a
flowered only if a period of period of continuous
continuous darkness was darkness was shorter
longer than a critical dark than a critical dark
period for that particular period for that
species (13 hours in this particular species (13
example). hours in this example).

CONCLUSION
The experiments indicated that flowering of each species was determined by a critical period of
darkness (“critical night length”) for that species, not by a specific period of light. Therefore, “short-day”
plants are more properly called “long-night” plants, and “long-day” plants are really “short-night” plants.
 Gravity
 Response to gravity
• Is known as gravitropism
 Roots show positive gravitropism
• Grow with gravity
 Stems show negative gravitropism
• Grow against gravity
 Plants may detect gravity by the
settling of statoliths
• Specialized plastids containing dense
starch grains

GRAVITY
Statoliths
20 µm
 Environmental Stresses
 Environmental stresses
• Have a potentially adverse effect on a
plant’s survival, growth, and
reproduction
• Can have a devastating impact on crop
yields in agriculture
 Drought
 During drought
• Plants respond to water deficit by
reducing transpiration
• Deeper roots continue to grow
 Flooding
 Enzymatic destruction of cells creates air
tubes that help plants survive oxygen
deprivation during flooding

Vascular
cylinder

Air tubes

Epidermis

100 µm 100 µm
(a) Control root (aerated) (b) Experimental root (nonaerated)
 Salt Stress
 Plants respond to salt stress by
producing solutes tolerated at high
concentrations
• Keeping the water potential of cells
more negative than that of the soil
solution