2.4 Responding To The Environment Flashcards
(128 cards)
What is positive tropism?
When the growth is towards the stimulus
What is a tropism?
A directional growth response in which the direction of the response is determined by the direction of the external stimulus
What is negative tropism?
When the growth is away from the stimulus
If the stimulus is light, what type of tropism occurs?
Phototropism
If the stimulus is gravity, what type of tropism occurs?
Geotropism
If the stimulus is chemical, what type of tropism occurs?
Chemotropism
If the stimulus is water, what type of tropism occurs?
Hydrotropism
If the stimulus is air, what type of tropism occurs?
Aerotropism
Give an example of thigmotropism
Ivy winding around another plant to gain support
What are nasties?
Also called nastic responses
They are non-directional responses
What are plant hormones?
Chemical messengers that can be transported away from their site of manufacture to act in other parts of the plant
- Some hormones stay in the cells that make them and exert their effect there
Where are plant hormones made?
By cells in a variety of tissues in the plant
How can hormones move around the plant?
- Active transport
- Diffusion
- Mass flow in the phloem sap or in xylem vessels
What can hormones influence?
Cell division, cell elongation or cell differentiation
What effect do auxins have?
- Promote cell elongation
- Inhibit growth of the side shoots
- Inhibit leaf abscission (leaf fall)
What effect do cytokinins have?
Promote cell division
Promote bud and shoot growth
Prevent leaf senescence (By making the leaf act as a sink for phloem transport, so the leaf is guaranteed a good supply of nutrients)
What effect do gibberellins have?
- Promote seed germination
- Promote growth of stems
What effect does abscissic acid have?
- Inhibits seed germination and growth
- Causes stomatal closure when the plant is stressed by low water availability
- Inhibits bud growth
What effect does ethene have?
Promotes fruit ripening
Where are auxins made?
They are made continually in the shoot apex and young leaves (apical meristems)
Explain how IAA causes positive phototropism
- Light is detected by photoreceptors
- These set off a chain of reactions, leading to the redistribution of IAA
- More IAA moves to the shaded side of the stem
- IAA causes the cells to elongate by loosening the structure of the cell wall
- Because the cells on the shaded side have a higher concentration of IAA, they stretch more than the cells in the light
- This causes the shoot to bend towards the light
How do auxins cause cells to elongate?
- They promote the active transport of hydrogen ions into the cell wall (via an ATPase enzyme on the plasma membrane)
- The resulting low pH provides optimum conditions for wall-loosening enzymes (expansins) to work
- These enzymes break bonds within the cellulose so the walls become less rigid and can expand as the cell takes on water
- At the same time, the increased hydrogen ions also disrupt hydrogen bonds within cellulose
What is apical dominance?
The growth of the main central stem of a plant, with reduced production of lateral sheets/branches
- Controlled by auxins
Where are apical meristems found and what are they responsible for?
- Located at the tips of roots and shoots
- Responsible for the roots and shoots getting longer