UPSC Biology Transport In Plants Transport in Plants

 Transport in Plants

1.           Translocation

• In a flowering plant the substances that would need to be transported are water, mineral nutrients, organic nutrients and plant growth regulators. Over small distances substances move by diffusion and by cytoplasmic streaming supplemented by active transport. Transport over longer distances proceeds through the vascular system (the xylem and the phloem) and is called translocation.
• An important aspect that needs to be considered is the direction of transport. In rooted plants, transport in xylem (of water and minerals) is essentially unidirectional, from roots to the stems. Organic and mineral nutrients however, undergo multidirectional transport.
• Organic compounds synthesised in the photosynthetic leaves are exported to all other parts of the plant including storage organs. From the storage organs they are later re-exported.
• The mineral nutrients are taken up by the roots and transported upwards into the stem, leaves and the growing regions.
• When any plant part undergoes senescence, nutrients may be withdrawn from such regions and moved to the growing parts.
• Hormones or plant growth regulators and other chemical stimuli are also transported, though in very small amounts, sometimes in a strictly polarised or unidirectional manner from where they are synthesised to other parts.

2.           Diffusion

• Movement by diffusion is passive, and may be from one part of the cell to the other, or from cell to cell, or over short distances, say, from the intercellular spaces of the leaf to the outside. No energy expenditure takes place.
• In diffusion, molecules move in a random fashion, the net result being substances moving from regions of higher concentration to regions of lower concentration.
• Diffusion is a slow process and is not dependent on a "living system'. Diffusion is obvious in gases and liquids, but diffusion in solids rather than of solids is more likely.
• Diffusion is very important to plants since it is the only means for gaseous movement within the plant body.
• Diffusion rates are affected by the gradient of concentration, the permeability of the membrane separating them, temperature and pressure.

3.           Plant-Water Relations

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• Water is essential for all physiological activities of the plant and plays a very important role in all living organisms. It provides the medium in which most substances are dissolved.
• The protoplasm of the cells is nothing but water in which different molecules are dissolved and (several particles) suspended.
• A seed may appear dry but it still has water - otherwise it would not be alive and respiring.
• Terrestrial plants take up huge amount water daily but most of it is lost to the air through evaporation from the leaves, i.e., transpiration.
• A mature corn plant absorbs almost three litres of water in a day, while a mustard plant absorbs water equal to its own weight in about 5 hours. Because of this high demand for water, it is not surprising that water is often the limiting factor for plant growth and productivity in both agricultural and natural environments.
• Water potentialis a concept fundamental to understanding water movement.
• Water molecules possess kinetic energy. In liquid and gaseous form they are in random motion that is both rapid and constant. The greater the concentration of water in a system, the greater is its kinetic energy or 'water potential5. Hence, it is obvious that pure water will have the greatest water potential.
• If two systems containing water are in contact, random movement of water molecules will result in net movement of water molecules from the system with higher energy to the one with lower energy. Thus water will move from the system containing water at higher water potential to the one having low water potential.
• This process of movement of substances down a gradient of free energy is called diffusion. By convention, the water potential of pure water at standard temperatures, which is not under any pressure, is taken to be zero.
• If some solute is dissolved in pure water, the solution has fewer free water and the concentration of water decreases, reducing its water potential. Hence, all solutions have a lower water potential than pure water.
• If a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure is applied to pure water or a solution, its water potential increases. It is equivalent to pumping water from one place to another.
• Osmosis is the term used to refer specifically to the diffusion of water across a differentially - or semi-permeable membrane. Osmosis occurs spontaneously in response to a driving force. The net direction and rate of osmosis depends on both the pressure gradient and concentration gradient. Water will move from its region of higher chemical potential (or concentration) to its region of lower chemical potential until equilibrium is reached.
• If the external solution balances the osmotic pressure of the cytoplasm, it is said to be isotonic. If the external solution is more dilute than the cytoplasm, it is hypotonic and if the external solution is more concentrated, it is hypertonic.
• Plasmolysis occurs when water moves out of the cell and the cell membrane of a plant cell shrinks away from its cell wall.

4.           Absorption of Water by Plant

• We know that the roots absorb most of the water that goes into plants; obviously that is why we apply water to the soil and not on the leaves.
• The responsibility of absorption of water and minerals is more specifically the function of the root hairs that are present in millions at the tips of the roots.
• Root hairs are thin-walled slender extensions of root epidermal cells that greatly increase the surface area for absorption. Water is absorbed along with mineral solutes, by the root hairs, purely by diffusion.
• Some plants have additional structures associated with them that help in water (and mineral) absorption.
• A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association of a fungus with a root system. The fungal filaments form a network around the young root or they penetrate the root cells.
• The hyphae have a very large surface area that absorb mineral ions and water from the soil from a much larger volume of soil that perhaps a root cannot do.
• The fungus provides minerals and water to the roots, in turn the roots provide sugars and Nitrogen-containing compounds to the mycorrhizae.
• Some plants have an obligate association with the mycorrhizae. For example, Pinus seeds cannot germinate and establish without the presence of mycorrhizae.
• Since the water has to be moved up a stem against gravity, what provides the energy for this?
• As various ions from the soil are actively transported into the vascular tissues of the roots, water follows (its potential gradient) and increases the pressure inside the xylem. This positive pressure is called root pressure, and can be responsible for pushing up water to small heights in the stem.
• Effects of root pressure is also observable at night and early morning when evaporation is low, and excess water collects in the form of droplets around special openings of veins near the tip of grass blades, and leaves of many herbaceous parts. Such water loss in its liquid phase is known as guttation.
• Root pressure can, at best, only provide a modest push in the overall process of water transport. They obviously do not play a major role in water movement up tall trees.
• The greatest contribution of root pressure may be to re-establish the continuous chains of water molecules in the xylem which often break under the enormous tensions created by transpiration. Root pressure does not account for the majority of water transport; most plants meet their need by transpiratory pull.
• Despite the absence of a heart or a circulatory system in plants, the flow of water upward through the xylem in plants can achieve fairly high rates, up to 15 metres per hour. How is this movement accomplished? A long standing question is, whether water is 'pushed' or 'pulled' through the plant.
• Most researchers agree that water is mainly 'pulled5 through the plant, and that the driving force for this process is transpiration from the leaves. This is referred to as the cohesion-tension-transpiration pull model of water transport. But, what generates this transpirational pull?
• Water is transient in plants. Less than 1 per cent of the water reaching the leaves is used in photosynthesis and plant growth. Most of it is lost through the stomata in the leaves. This water loss is known as transpiration.

5.           Transpiration

• Transpiration is the evaporative loss of water by plants. It occurs mainly through the stomata in the leaves. Besides the loss of water vapour in transpiration, exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the leaf also occurs through pores called stomata (sing.: stoma).
• Normally stomata are open in the day time and close during the night. The immediate cause of the opening or closing of the stomata is a change in the turgidity of the guard cells.
• Transpiration is affected by several external factors: temperature, light, humidity, wind speed. Plant factors that affect transpiration include number and distribution of stomata, per cent of open stomata, water status of the plant, canopy structure etc.
• The transpiration driven ascent of xylem sap depends mainly on the following physical properties of water :
• Cohesion: mutual attraction between water molecules.
• Adhesion: attraction of water molecules to polar surfaces (such as the surface of tracheary elements).
• Surface Tension: water molecules are attracted to each other in the liquid phase more than to water in the gas phase.
• These properties give water high tensile strength, i.e., an ability to resist a pulling force, and high capillarity, i.e., the ability to rise in thin tubes. In plants capillarity is aided by the small diameter of the tracheary elements - the tracheids and vessel elements.
• The process of photosynthesis requires water. The system of xylem vessels from the root to the leaf vein can supply the needed water. But what force does a plant use to move water molecules into the leaf parenchyma cells where they are needed?
• As water evaporates through the stomata, since the thin film of water over the cells is continuous, it results in pulling of water, molecule by molecule, into the leaf from the xylem.
• Also, because of lower concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere as compared to the substomatal cavity and intercellular spaces, water diffuses into the surrounding air.
• Transpiration has more than one purpose; it
• creates transpiration pull for absorption and transport of plants
• supplies water for photosynthesis
• transports minerals from the soil to all parts of the plant
• cools leaf surfaces, sometimes 10 to 15 degrees, by evaporative cooling
• maintains the shape and structure of the plants by keeping cells turgid

6.           Uptake of Mineral Ions

• Unlike water, all minerals cannot be passively absorbed by the roots. Two factors account for this :
• Minerals are present in the soil as charged particles (ions) which cannot move across cell membranes.
• The concentration of minerals in the soil is usually lower than the concentration of minerals in the root. Therefore, most minerals must enter the root by active absorption into the cytoplasm of epidermal cells. This needs energy in the form of Adenosine Tri Phosphate (ATP).
• After the ions have reached xylem through active or passive uptake, or a combination of the two, their further transport up the stem to all parts of the plant is through the transpiration stream.
• The chief sinks for the mineral elements are the growing regions of the plant, such as the apical and lateral meristems, young leaves, developing flowers, fruits and seeds, and the storage organs.
• Unloading of mineral ions occurs at the fine vein endings through diffusion and active uptake by these cells.
• Mineral ions are frequently remobilised, particularly from older, senescing parts. Older dying leaves export much of their mineral content to younger leaves. Similarly, before leaf fall in decidous plants, minerals are removed to other parts.
• Elements most readily mobilised are phosphorus, sulphur, nitrogen and potassium. Some elements that are structural components like calcium are not remobilised.
• An analysis of the xylem exudates shows that though some of the nitrogen travels as inorganic ions, much of it is carried in the organic form as amino acids and related compounds.
• Similarly, small amounts of P and S are carried as organic compounds. In addition, small amount of exchange of materials does take place between xylem and phloem. Hence, it is not that we can clearly make a distinction and say categorically that xylem transports only inorganic nutrients while phloem transports only organic materials, as was traditionally believed.

7.           Phloem Transport

• Food, primarily sucrose, is transported by the vascular tissue phloem from a source to a sink. Usually the source is understood to be that part of the plant which synthesizes the food, i.e., the leaf, and sink, the part that needs or stores the food. But, the source and sink may be reversed depending on the season, or the plant's needs.
• Sugar stored in roots may be mobilised to become a source of food in the early spring when the buds of trees, act as sink; they need energy for growth and development of the photosynthetic apparatus. Since the source-sink relationship is variable, the direction of movement in the phloem can be upwards or downwards, i.e., bi-directional.
• This contrasts with that of the xylem where the movement is always unidirectional, i.e., upwards. Hence, unlike one-way flow of water in transpiration, food in phloem sap can be transported in any required direction so long as there is a source of sugar and a sink able to use, store or remove the sugar.
• Phloem sap is mainly water and sucrose, but other sugars, hormones and amino acids are also transported or translocated through phloem.