Stomata Absorb Nutrients From Aerosols

blue microscopic photograph of plant cells

Biological Strategy

Plants

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Chemical Entities

Living systems often require chemical elements and chemical compounds, including complex sugars, proteins, and odor-making compounds, to perform critical activities. These compounds exist in various states–solid, liquid, and gas–and are ubiquitous in soil, water, and air. This requires that living systems not only have ways to capture, absorb, or filter them, but also ways to differentiate among them, selecting those that are valuable or harmful. For example, mangrove trees live with their roots in salty water and sediments. Various mangrove species have different strategies for removing salt from the water they take in so that their tissues can use the fresh water.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Liquids

The most common liquid used by living systems is water, which they require to survive. But there are many other liquids that provide nourishment, play a role in defense mechanisms, or serve other purposes. Water varies in its availability; it is sometimes plentiful and sometimes very scarce or only available as fog or mist. To minimize the energy required to capture, absorb, or filter liquids, living systems have strategies that take advantage of the unique properties of the given liquid. For example, water moves from a gaseous to liquid state when it encounters a surface colder than the air. Plants in forests that experience fog and clouds more than rain have strategies that condense liquid water from moist air.

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Plants

Phylum Plantae (“plants”): Angiosperms, gymnosperms, green algae, and more

Plants have evolved by using special structures within their cells to harness energy directly from sunlight. There are currently over 350,000 known species of plants which include angiosperms (flowering trees and plants), gymnosperms (conifers, Gingkos, and others), ferns, hornworts, liverworts, mosses, and green algae. While most get energy through the process of photosynthesis, some are partially carnivores, feeding on the bodies of insects, and others are plant parasites, feeding entirely off of other plants. Plants reproduce through fruits, seeds, spores, and even asexually. They evolved around 500 million years ago and can now be found on every continent worldwide.

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Stomata on surface of leaves on some plants bind aerosol particles and liquefy and absorb them using atmospheric humidity.

Some plants have adapted to competing for nutrient uptake by creating stomata that open in the presence of humidity. When these stomata open, the nutrients that have collected on the surface of the leaf are absorbed and transported into the leaf apoplast. The mechanism through which these plants do this is known as hydraulic activation of stomata, or “HAS.” The surfaces of plants are filled with grooves that collect aerosols over time. When these plants are in the presence of high humidity, moisture also begins to collect on the surface of the plant. As it does, the aerosols containing hygroscopic salts bind with the water. The presence of excess moisture from the humidity also causes the activation of certain stomata. As these stomata open, the fine aerosol particles that have bonded to the water are transported to the interior of the leaf where they can then be absorbed and utilized for their nutritional value.

Last Updated August 23, 2016

References

Journal article

Hygroscopic particles on leaves: Nutrients or desiccants?

Ecological Monographs | 03/02/2010 | Juergen Burkhardt

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