Structures Absorb Amino Acids

Biological Strategy

Potbelly airplant

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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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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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The leaves of the potbelly airplant actively take up amino acids from solution via specialized epidermal hair-like structures.

“Under dry conditions, the upper dead cells of the trichome form a cup-like shape with the rim composed of slightly curled wing cells (Fig. 1). When wetted, these cells rapidly absorb water and the wing cells flatten against the surface of surrounding epidermal cells. All water entry into the plant follows a route from the wing cells through the ring and central disc cells to the living dome and foot cells…Histo-autoradiographic studies using labeled amino acids indicate that living stalk cells of T. [Tillandsia] paucifolia trichomes may be capable of taking up dissolved free amino acids from extrafoliar solutions.” (Nyman et al. 1987:682)

Nyman LP, Davis JP, O’Dell S J, Arditti J, Stephens GC, Benzing DH. Active Uptake of Amino Acids by Leaves of an Epiphytic Vascular Plant, Tillandsia paucifolia (Bromeliaceae). Plant Physiol 1987;83(3):681-684.

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Journal article

Active Uptake of Amino Acids by Leaves of an Epiphytic Vascular Plant, Tillandsia paucifolia (Bromeliaceae)

PLANT PHYSIOLOGY | 13/12/2008 | L. P. Nyman, J. P. Davis, S. J. O'Dell, J. Arditti, G. C. Stephens, D. H. Benzing

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