Re-contemplate an entangled bank:<i>The Power of Movement in Plants</i>revisited

Edwards, Will; Moles, Angela T.

doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2009.00972.x

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 75 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Plants have a long and international history in spaceflight research (recent reviews include: [5-10]), and because of the relationship between gravity and plant architecture [11], plants are considered important tools for discovery of gravity-related biological phenomena [7]. Yet the cultivation of plants within spaceflight vehicles presented numerous physical and engineering challenges that complicated interpretation of fundamental plant responses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organ-specific remodeling of the Arabidopsis transcriptome in response to spaceflight

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundSpaceflight presents a novel environment that is outside the evolutionary experience of terrestrial organisms. Full activation of the International Space Station as a science platform complete with sophisticated plant growth chambers, laboratory benches, and procedures for effective sample return, has enabled a new level of research capability and hypothesis testing in this unique environment. The opportunity to examine the strategies of environmental sensing in spaceflight, which includes the absence of unit gravity, provides a unique insight into the balance of influence among abiotic cues directing plant growth and development: including gravity, light, and touch. The data presented here correlate morphological and transcriptome data from replicated spaceflight experiments.ResultsThe transcriptome of Arabidopsis thaliana demonstrated organ-specific changes in response to spaceflight, with 480 genes showing significant changes in expression in spaceflight plants compared with ground controls by at least 1.9-fold, and 58 by more than 7-fold. Leaves, hypocotyls, and roots each displayed unique patterns of response, yet many gene functions within the responses are related. Particularly represented across the dataset were genes associated with cell architecture and growth hormone signaling; processes that would not be anticipated to be altered in microgravity yet may correlate with morphological changes observed in spaceflight plants. As examples, differential expression of genes involved with touch, cell wall remodeling, root hairs, and cell expansion may correlate with spaceflight-associated root skewing, while differential expression of auxin-related and other gravity-signaling genes seemingly correlates with the microgravity of spaceflight. Although functionally related genes were differentially represented in leaves, hypocotyls, and roots, the expression of individual genes varied substantially across organ types, indicating that there is no single response to spaceflight. Rather, each organ employed its own response tactics within a shared strategy, largely involving cell wall architecture.ConclusionsSpaceflight appears to initiate cellular remodeling throughout the plant, yet specific strategies of the response are distinct among specific organs of the plant. Further, these data illustrate that in the absence of gravity plants rely on other environmental cues to initiate the morphological responses essential to successful growth and development, and that the basis for that engagement lies in the differential expression of genes in an organ-specific manner that maximizes the utilization of these signals – such as the up-regulation of genes associated with light-sensing in roots.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organ-specific remodeling of the Arabidopsis transcriptome in response to spaceflight

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the past few decades it has been shown that the circumnutating “behavior” in plants, first described by Charles and Francis Darwin [1] and most recently revisited in [2] is primarily due to radially asymmetric growth in the elongating organs, which is in turn influenced by a variety of environmental stimuli (e.g. [3-7]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant growth strategies are remodeled by spaceflight

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundArabidopsis plants were grown on the International Space Station within specialized hardware that combined a plant growth habitat with a camera system that can capture images at regular intervals of growth. The Imaging hardware delivers telemetric data from the ISS, specifically images received in real-time from experiments on orbit, providing science without sample return. Comparable Ground Controls were grown in a sister unit that is maintained in the Orbital Environment Simulator at Kennedy Space Center. One of many types of biological data that can be analyzed in this fashion is root morphology. Arabidopsis seeds were geminated on orbit on nutrient gel Petri plates in a configuration that encouraged growth along the surface of the gel. Photos were taken every six hours for the 15 days of the experiment.ResultsIn the absence of gravity, but the presence of directional light, spaceflight roots remained strongly negatively phototropic and grew in the opposite direction of the shoot growth; however, cultivars WS and Col-0 displayed two distinct, marked differences in their growth patterns. First, cultivar WS skewed strongly to the right on orbit, while cultivar Col-0 grew with little deviation away from the light source. Second, the Spaceflight environment also impacted the rate of growth in Arabidopsis. The size of the Flight plants (as measured by primary root and hypocotyl length) was uniformly smaller than comparably aged Ground Control plants in both cultivars.ConclusionsSkewing and waving, thought to be gravity dependent phenomena, occur in spaceflight plants. In the presence of an orienting light source, phenotypic trends in skewing are gravity independent, and the general patterns of directional root growth typified by a given genotype in unit gravity are recapitulated on orbit, although overall growth patterns on orbit are less uniform. Skewing appears independent of axial orientation on the ISS – suggesting that other tropisms (such as for oxygen and temperature) do not influence skewing. An aspect of the spaceflight environment also retards the rate of early Arabidopsis growth.

show abstract

“…Nowhere is Darwin's legacy more keenly felt than in these fundamental areas of biology today (Edwards & Moles, 2009;Micheneau et al, 2009;Weller, 2009). Although Darwin did not understand the molecular mechanism of biological inheritance himself, his legacy is apparent in the work of the scientists that came after him.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Darwin-Inspired Learning

Boulter¹,

Reiß²,

Sanders³

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ScopeMathematics and science education are in a state of change. Received models of teaching, curriculum, and researching in the two fields are adopting and developing new ways of thinking about how people of all ages know, learn, and develop. The recent literature in both fields includes contributions focusing on issues and using theoretical frames that were unthinkable a decade ago. For example, we see an increase in the use of conceptual and methodological tools from anthropology and semiotics to understand how different forms of knowledge are interconnected, how students learn, how textbooks are written, etcetera. Science and mathematics educators also have turned to issues such as identity and emotion as salient to the way in which people of all ages display and develop knowledge and skills. And they use dialectical or phenomenological approaches to answer ever arising questions about learning and development in science and mathematics.The purpose of this series is to encourage the publication of books that are close to the cutting edge of both fields. The series aims at becoming a leader in providing refreshing and bold new work-rather than out-of-date reproductions of past states of the art-shaping both fields more than reproducing them, thereby closing the traditional gap that exists between journal articles and books in terms of their salience about what is new. The series is intended not only to foster books concerned with knowing, learning, and teaching in school but also with doing and learning mathematics and science across the whole lifespan (e.g., science in kindergarten; mathematics at work); and it is to be a vehicle for publishing books that fall between the two domains-such as when scientists learn about graphs and graphing as part of their work.

show abstract

Re-contemplate an entangled bank:The Power of Movement in Plantsrevisited

Cited by 19 publications

References 75 publications

Organ-specific remodeling of the Arabidopsis transcriptome in response to spaceflight

Organ-specific remodeling of the Arabidopsis transcriptome in response to spaceflight

Plant growth strategies are remodeled by spaceflight

Darwin-Inspired Learning

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About