The scarlet gilia can be found standing tall among the sagebrush on mountainsides, its red flowers blazing. The drought, shade, and the mule and elk grazing does not faze it. Biologists call plants like this the overcompenstors. Overcompensation was first observed in the scarlet gilia in 1987. Joanna Klein writes "In the study published this month in the journal Ecology, scientists showed for the first time that in an experiment, damaging some plants set off a molecular chain of events that caused them to grow back bigger, and produce more seeds and chemical defenses simultaneously."
Dr. Paige looked for a molecular mechanism behind oercompenstion in various types of Arabidopsis. He started seeing indications that not only did they get bushier and produce more seeds, but they also ramped up their chemical defenses. Most plants respond to damage with a process called endoreduplication, in which a cell can copy its DNA over and over without splitting into two cells. This gives the plant bigger cells with multiple energy factories to accomplish a variety of tasks. Many damaged plants only show minimal levels of endoreduplication. But the overcompensators go into overdrive with the process. In the case of the study’s mustard plants, they were able to grow bigger and also produce glucosinolate, the sulfurish, bitter chemical compound in mustard, kale, cabbage and horseradish.
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March 2018
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