Spatio-temporal integration in plant tropisms. Issue 154 (15th May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meroz, Yasmine; Bastien, Renaud; Mahadevan, L.
• Is Part Of: Journal of the Royal Society interface. Volume 16:Issue 154(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-05-15
• Subjects: plant tropism -- response function -- growth -- temporal integration -- reciprocity; Physical sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Life sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Interdisciplinary research -- Periodicals; 570.5
• DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2019.0038
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-5689

Abstract

Abstract : Tropisms, growth-driven responses to environmental stimuli, cause plant organs to respond in space and time and reorient themselves. Classical experiments from nearly a century ago reveal that plant shoots respond to the integrated history of light and gravity stimuli rather than just responding instantaneously. We introduce a temporally non-local response function for the dynamics of shoot growth formulated as an integro-differential equation whose solution allows us to qualitatively reproduce experimental observations associated with intermittent and unsteady stimuli. Furthermore, an analytic solution for the case of a pulse stimulus expresses the response function as a function of experimentally tractable variables, which we calculate for the case of the phototropic response of Arabidopsis hypocotyls. All together, our model enables us to predict tropic responses to time-varying stimuli, manifested in temporal integration phenomena, and sets the stage for the incorporation of additional effects such as multiple stimuli, gravitational sagging, etc.