Microspines in tropical climbing plants: a small-scale fix for life in an obstacle course.

Many climbing plants have microspines on their stems, which facilitate attachment and prevent slipping and falling from host plant supports. Extending via growth through complex environments and anchoring stems to substrates with minimal contact forces are key benefits for climbing plants. Microspines are also highly desirable features for new technologies and applications in soft robotics.

Effect of mechanical damage and wound healing on the viscoelastic properties of stems of flax cultivars (Linum usitatissimum L. cv. Eden and cv. Drakkar).

As plant fibres are increasingly used in technical textiles and their composites, underlying principles of wound healing in living plant fibres are relevant to product quality, and provide inspiration for biomimetic healing in synthetic materials. In this work, two Linum usitatissimum cultivars differing in their stem mechanical properties, cv. Eden (stems resistant to lodging) and cv.

Plant growth rates and seed size: a re-evaluation.

Small-seeded plant species are often reported to have high relative growth rate or RGR. However, because RGR declines as plants grow larger, small-seeded species could achieve higher RGR simply by virtue of their small size. In contrast, size-standardized growth rate or SGR factors out these size effects.

Effect of mechanical perturbation on the biomechanics, primary growth and secondary tissue development of inflorescence stems of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Background And Aims: Mechanical perturbation is known to inhibit elongation of the inflorescence stem of Arabidopsis thaliana. The phenomenon has been reported widely for both herbaceous and woody plants, and has implications for how plants adjust their size and form to survive in mechanically perturbed environments. While this response is an important aspect of the plant's architecture, little is known about how mechanical properties of the inflorescence stem are modified or how its primary and secondary tissues respond to mechanical perturbation.

Adaptation and extinction in experimentally fragmented landscapes.

Competition and disturbance are potent ecological forces that shape evolutionary trajectories. These forces typically work in opposition: when disturbance is infrequent, densities are high and competition is intense. In contrast, frequent disturbance creates a low-density environment in which competition is weak and good dispersal essential.

A new method for measuring relative growth rate can uncover the costs of defensive compounds in Arabidopsis thaliana.

*Most plants suffer some degree of herbivore attack and many actively defend themselves against such an event. However, while such defence is generally assumed to be costly, it has sometimes proved difficult to demonstrate the costs of defensive compounds. *Here, we present a method for analysing growth rates which allows the effects of variation in initial plant size to be properly accounted for and apply it to 30 lines from a recombinant inbred population of Arabidopsis thaliana.

The effect of growth conditions on the seed size/number trade-off.

Background: If the amount of resources allocated to reproduction (K) is fixed, then an increase in seed mass (S) can only be achieved by a decrease in seed number (n = K/S). Thus, log(n) = log(K)-log(S) producing a slope of -1 when seed mass and number are plotted on log-log axes. However, in comparative studies, empirical support for a slope of -1 is limited and contentious, leading some to question the utility of this concept.

Growth rates, seed size, and physiology: do small-seeded species really grow faster?

Relative growth rate (RGR) is currently the most commonly used method for measuring and comparing species' intrinsic growth potential. Comparative studies have, for example, revealed that small-seeded species have higher RGR, leading to the common belief that small-seeded species possess physiological adaptations for rapid growth that would allow them to outgrow large-seeded species, given sufficient time. We show that, because RGR declines as individual plants grow, it is heavily biased by initial size and does not measure the size-corrected growth potential that determines the outcome of competition in the long-term.