Washington, June 25 (ANI): Plants use precise mathematical calculation to use their starch reserves at a constant rate so they don't run out of it before dawn, new research has suggested.
It's a known fact that plants feed themselves during the day by sun's energy to transform carbon dioxide into sugars and starch, however, after the sun set, to prevent starvation they depend on their store of starch, Fox News reported.
In their research, scientists at the John Innes Centre showed that precise adjustments are made by plants for their starch consumption, which ensures that the store helps them survive till dawn arrives even if the night befalls unexpectedly early or the size of the store of the starch varies.
During the night, mechanisms inside leaf calculate size of the store of starch and calculate the length of time until dawn.
Their data about time comes from an internal clock, which is quite similar to human's body clock. The size of the store of the starch is then divided by the length of time until dawn to set the correct rate of starch consumption, so that, by dawn, around 95 percent of starch is used up.
Metabolic biologist Professor Alison Smith said that if the store of the starch is used fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted.
The scientists used mathematical modelling to investigate how such a division calculation can be carried out inside a plant.
The research is set to be published in the open access journal eLife. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
