James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biophysics, University of Glasgow, Bower Building, Glasgow, UK.
J Exp Bot. 2021 Feb 27;72(5):1906-1918. doi: 10.1093/jxb/eraa541.
Plants are known to exhibit a thigmomorphogenetic response to mechanical stimuli by altering their morphology and mechanical properties. Wind is widely perceived as mechanical stress and in many experiments its influence is simulated by applying mechanical perturbations. However, it is known that wind-induced effects on plants can differ and at times occur even in the opposite direction compared with those induced by mechanical perturbations. In the present study, the long-term response of Arabidopsis thaliana to a constant unidirectional wind was investigated. We found that exposure to wind resulted in a positive anemotropic response and in significant alterations to Arabidopsis morphology, mechanical properties, and anatomical tissue organization that were associated with the plant's strategy of acclimation to a windy environment. Overall, the observed response of Arabidopsis to wind differs significantly from previously reported responses of Arabidopsis to mechanical perturbations. The presented results suggest that the response of Arabidopsis is sensitive to the type of mechanical stimulus applied, and that it is not always straightforward to simulate one type of perturbation by another.
植物对机械刺激表现出向触性形态发生反应，通过改变其形态和机械特性。风被广泛认为是机械应力，在许多实验中，通过施加机械扰动来模拟其影响。然而，已知风对植物的影响可能不同，有时甚至与机械扰动引起的影响相反。在本研究中，研究了拟南芥对持续单向风的长期响应。我们发现，暴露在风中会导致正向性风偏性响应，并显著改变拟南芥的形态、机械特性和解剖组织结构，这与植物适应风环境的策略有关。总的来说，拟南芥对风的反应与之前报道的拟南芥对机械扰动的反应有很大的不同。研究结果表明，拟南芥对风的反应对施加的机械刺激类型很敏感，而且并不总是可以通过另一种扰动来简单地模拟一种类型的扰动。
