Active and Passive Electrical Signaling in Plants

Abstract

Electrical signaling on long and short distances exists in plants. There are three major types of electrical signaling in plants and animals: action potentials, electrotonic potentials, and graded potentials. The action potential in plants can propagate over the entire length of the cell membrane and along the conductive bundles of tissue with constant amplitude, duration, and speed. Electrotonic potentials exponentially decrease with distance. An intermediate place takes so-called graded potentials that involve the process of electrical excitation but do not evolve into full-fledged action potentials. A graded potential is an electrical signal that corresponds to the size of the stimulus. Electrical signals can propagate along the plasma membrane on short distances in plasmodesmata, and on long distances in a phloem. In this chapter, we discuss electrical signaling in the Venus flytrap and Mimosa pudica.