Patterns Of Growth Activity Research Articles

Growth activity of fusiform initials in storeyed cambium

The intrusive growth of fusiform initials was studied in <i>Entandrophragma</i>, This growth makes possible a change in the position of the cell ends of one storey in respect to those in the neighbouring storey, and this is 'turn leads to changes in the orientation of cambial initials. The growth activities of the oppositely directed ends of the same initial are not the same. Not all cell ends are simultaneously actiye. There are groups of ends distributed alternately in a storey which are active or inactive, so that a pattern of growth activity appears in the cambium. The activity of a particular cell end changes in successive time periods. Owing to this, the rate of creeping of one end past. those of the adjoining storey varies. This phenomenon of changes in the activity of cell ends in time may be referred to the phenomenon of the appearance of the growth activity pattern on the cambium surface under the hypothesis of transverse shifting of the elements of this pattern ("active" and. "inactive" groups) in relation to the cambial initials.

Coexistence and evolutionary dynamics mediated by seasonal environmental variation in annual plant communities

It is well established theoretically that competing species may coexist by having different responses to variation over time in the physical environment. Whereas previous theory has focused mostly on year-to-year environmental variation, we investigate how within-year variation can be the basis of species coexistence. We ask also the important but often neglected question of whether the species differences that allow coexistence are compatible with evolutionary processes. We seek the simplest circumstances that permit coexistence based on within-year environmental variation, and then evaluate the robustness of coexistence in the face of evolutionary forces. Our focus is on coexistence of annual plant species living in arid regions. We first consider environmental variation of a very simple structure where a single pulse of rain occurs, and different species have different patterns of growth activity following the rain pulse. We show that coexistence of two species is possible based on the storage effect coexistence mechanism in this simplest of varying environments. We find an exact expression for the magnitude of the storage effect that allows the functioning of the coexistence mechanism to be analyzed. However, in these simplest of circumstances, coexistence in our models is not evolutionarily stable. Increasing the complexity of the environment to two rain pulses leads to evolutionarily stable species coexistence, and a route to diversity via evolutionary branching. This demonstration of the compatibility of a coexistence mechanism with evolutionary processes is an important step in assessing the likely importance of a mechanism in nature.

Relationship between the grain pattern in the wood, domain pattern and pattern of growth activity in the storeyed cambium of trees

The relationship between the arrangement of cell events occurring in cambium in a definite configuration and the grain pattern of wood was investigated. Taking into consideration the growth activity of fusiform cell ends, a model of a migrating morphogenetic wave determining an event configuration was made. Waves of length λ=1 m for the periods T=2 years and T=3 years and waves of lengths λ=l m and λ=0.04 m for the period T=10 years were considered. On the model, events from successive annual rings, conventionally comprising 10 cell layers each, were summed. In this way, event maps were obtained. For wave λ=4 mm, the domain pattern on the modelled map was compatible with the grain pattern. The domain pattern for the wave λ=1 m was impossible to recreate because the wave “migrated too fast”. In this case, the pattern of event configuration, incompatible with the grain pattern, formed microareas, which were not domains.

Changes in activity of polyamine biosynthetic enzymes and in polyamine contents in developing fruit tissues of ‘Murcott’ mandarin

Arginine decarboxylase (ADC), ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), putrescine (Put) and spermidine (Spd) contents were analysed in growing ‘Murcott’ mandarin fruits from bloom to full development. Enzymes of polyamine synthesis and, to a lesser extent, polyamine contents roughly followed patterns of growth activity in fruit tissues, with a maximum at the early stages, a minimum at mid-summer and intermediate values at full fruit development. ADC/ODC and Put/Spd ratios were 2–8 and 2–30, respectively. Possible links between polyamine metabolism and citrus fruit set and development are suggested.