Roots Attach Firmly

Biological Strategy

English ivy

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Image: Sophie Louisnard / Unsplash / Free non-commercial use

Attach Permanently

A living system can conserve energy by attaching permanently to a particular site because it can take advantage of resources that come its way, rather than expending energy to move to resources. A permanent attachment, intended to last the lifetime of the living system, creates special challenges. For example, physical mechanisms, such as the anchor that holds a marine algae to the ocean’s bottom, must be able to withstand forces that can pull it off its substrate. Chemical mechanisms, such as a barnacle’s glue, must avoid both physical and chemical breakdown, such as being dissolved by water.

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Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

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Roots of English ivy attach firmly to surfaces using a multi-step attachment strategy involving glue and shape-changing root hairs.

English ivy can attach itself to nearly any surface using a strategy involving natural-forming glue and shape-changing root hairs. Along the underside of its stems, the ivy sprouts thin roots that can cling to small surface bumps on trees, rocks, and building plaster. Once the roots are in place, they secrete a glue-like substance to adhere to that location. As a final means for securing a tight hold, the root can change shape and scrunch itself into a tight spiral shape around its attachment point. These different stages of attachment can vary to enable the ivy to secure itself to a range of surfaces.

This strategy was co-contributed by EcoRise Youth Innovations

Image: John Bebbington, Science and Plants for Schools / CC BY NC SA - Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + ShareAlike

Last Updated March 16, 2018

References

“English ivy (Hedera helix L.) is able to grow on vertical substrates such as trees, rocks and house plaster, thereby attaching so firmly to the surface that when removed by force typically whole pieces of the climbing substrate are torn off. The structural details of the attachment process are not yet entirely understood. We studied the attachment process of English ivy in detail and suggest a four-phase process to describe the attachment strategy: (i) initial physical contact, (ii) form closure of the root with the substrate, (iii) chemical adhesion [glue], and (iv) shape changes of the root hairs and form-closure with the substrate [root hairs dry and scrunch into a spiral shape that locks them into place]. These four phases and their variations play an important role in the attachment to differently structured surfaces. We demonstrate that, in English ivy, different mechanisms work together to allow the plant’s attachment to various climbing substrates and reveal the importance of micro-fibril orientation in the root hairs for the attachment based on structural changes at the subcellular level.” (Melzer et al. 2010:1383)

Journal article

The attachment strategy of English ivy: a complex mechanism acting on several hierarchical levels

Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 7(50): 1383-1389 | 06/09/2010 | Melzer B, Steinbrecher T, Seidel R, Kraft O, Schwaiger R, Speck T

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Reference

Web page

English ivy's climbing secrets revealed by scientists

BBC Earth News | 28/05/2010 | Bourton J

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Reference

“Almost every element of plant anatomy, it seems, can be turned into some kind of climbing device. The cheese plant climbs with its roots, sending them out from its nodes, the places on its stem from which leaves normally spring, and wrapping them around the trunk of its host. European ivy sprouts roots all along the underside of its stems. They are so thin that they can cling to any tiny rugosity. Honeysuckle uses its own stem, winding it around the thicker stem of others. The glory lilies of tropical Africa and Asia have elongated the tips of their leaves into little mobile wires with which they hook themselves on to any support they can find.” (Attenborough 1995:161)

Book

The Private Life of Plants

21/08/1995 | David Attenborough

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