Vascular Systems Transport Fluids and Solutes

close up microscopic image of plant cells

Biological Strategy

Plants

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Distribute Liquids

Liquids include water, as well as body fluids such as blood, gastric juices, nutrient-laden liquids, and more. To survive, many living systems must move such liquids within themselves or between locations. Because of their properties, liquids tend to disperse unless they are confined in some way. To address this, living systems have strategies to confine fluids for transport, and to overcome barriers such as gravity, friction, and other forces. Some of these same barriers also provide opportunities. Trees and giraffes face the same challenge: how to move fluids (water and blood, respectively) upward against gravity. But their strategies are quite different. The tree moves water using capillary action and evaporation, possibly due to water’s properties of polarity and adhesion. The giraffe’s tight skin provides pressure to assist in blood circulation. and keep blood from pooling in the legs.

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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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Vascular systems of plants transport fluids and solutes by creating bars of tension by capillary action in leaves to pull water out of the soil and through the plant.

“Vascular structures are the central element of nearly all biological tissues, allowing for efficient convective transport of fluid and solute to all parts of the tissue from a centralized source. Abraham Stroock and colleagues from the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell are developing synthetic biomaterials with embedded microfluidic vascular structures to address two important challenges in the field of wound healing: 1) clinical treatment of severe cutaneous wounds due to burns or diabetes; and 2) in vitro modeling of the wound bed and development of improved epidermal grafts.” (Courtesy of the Biomimicry Guild)

Case studies database entry titled “Plant vascular system mimicked for wound dressing”

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