Mindanao State University

General Santos City

APICAL DOMINANCE, ABSCISSION

And BIOLOGICAL RHYTHM

Submitted by

Ameller, Juicy

Cacho, Amiel Jones

Cloma, Jonas

dela Cruz, Raymund Kim

Submitted to

Sir Renaldy Tupas

I. Abscission - is the SHEDDING of various parts of an organism, such as a plant dropping
a leaf, fruit, flower or seed.

1. Abscission of fruit: (FRUIT DROP)

Factors of Fruit
1. Mechanical Factor
- Wind
- Rain
- Typhoons
- Storms
- Hurricanes

2. Climatic Factor
- Extensive heat,
- Extensive coldness
- Drought
- heavy flooding

3. Physiological Factor ( focus of my report)

- Auxin
- Ethelyne
- Abscisic acid

4. Pathological Factor
- Pest
- Diseases
- Birds

5. Cultural practices
- Proper Tillage
- Proper Management
- Good drainage
- proper application of fertilizer
 6. Varietal Factor

PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTOR (Plant Hormones in Fruit DROP)

1. Etheyne
- The hormone ethylene has two functions. It helps ripen fruit and is involved in the
process of abscission, the dropping of leaves, fruits, and flowers.
2. Auxin
- As the auxin levels decrease, the flux of auxin to the abscission zone is reduced.
Exhaustion of auxin makes the abscission zone sensitive to ethylene.

3. Abscisic Acid
- is MISNAMED because it was once believed to play a role in abscission (the dropping of
leaves, fruits, and flowers), but we now know abscission is caused by ethylene. The
actual role of abscisic acid is to close the stomata, the tiny openings in leaves that allow
substances to enter and leave, and to maintain dormancy.

Some ideas and facts from fruit drop:

• As the fruit matures the level of Auxin drops.

• Level of ethelyne & Abscisic acid rises.

• Causes the degradation of separation layer of fruit.

• Stimulates the abscission zone.

• Ethelyne also increases the catabolic effects of fruits. And stimulates ripening.

2. DEFOLIATION
- Defoliation is a natural and regular occurrence in the case of deciduous trees and
shrubs that drop their leaves each year with the approach of winter
Factors of Defoliation:

1. Severe drought – less availability of water causes the plant to defoliate for survival

2. Pathological factor – insects, diseases, pests

3. Mechanical factor- heavy rain, wind, extensive heat

4. Extensive climate (high temp.)

5. Physiological (natural process) - (focus of my report)

Natural Defoliation:

1. Resorption - involves degrading chlorophyll to extract the majority of its nutrients.

2. Formation of protective layer - formed by the deposition of fatty material within and
between the cells on the stem side of the separation layer (abscission zone). This is the so-
called leaf scar which is so obvious on stems of deciduous plants during the winter months

3. Detachment- This step can occur in a variety of ways depending on the species but always
occurs at the abscission zone. Detachment can occur when layers of parenchyma cells secrete
cell wall enzymes to self-digest the middle lamella, which holds the cell walls together at the
abscission zone. This causes the cells of the abscission zone to break apart and the leaf or
other plant part to fall off.

3. Wintering and shedding in deciduous plants:

Why Deciduous plants shed their leaves during winter?

1. active process that evolved to conserve resources and protect the tree from being blown
over in the windier winter months.

2. It is controlled by the plant hormone auxin

3. light levels and temperatures drop, the flow of auxin to the leaves slows and levels of
another hormone, ethelyne

4. This signals the cells at the base of the leaf to weaken their cell walls, at the same time as
other cells expand to break the connections between the weakened cells. The result is like
tearing perforated paper, and the leaf drops to the ground.
II. Apical Dominance
Typically a shoot has leaves attached to a stem. The apex of the stem has an actively growing
apical bud. It produces additional nodes and internodes to add to the length of the shoot.
Additional leaves appear at the nodes as they are produced.

In some plants, the lateral bud located in the axil of each leaf does not grow to form branches,
especially at first. This condition is known as strong apical dominance.

Apical dominance is thought to be caused by the apical bud producing IAA (auxin) in
abundance. This auxin is transported basipetally from the apical bud. The auxin causes the lateral
buds to remain dormant. How could a lower concentration cause lateral buds to remain dormant
and a higher concentration cause the apical bud to grow? This is explained in the following
graph:

When the apical bud is removed, the source of IAA is removed. Since the auxin concentration is much
lower, the lateral buds can now grow. In fact their growth will be stimulated by a relativley small drop in
auxin concentration (see graph). Thus, decapitating (pruning) a shoot will cause it to branch.
Such response is the basis for all pruning "to form." By pruning carefully, the branching pattern
and form of the plant can be controlled. If pruning limits plant growth to two dimensions against
a wall, we call it espalier. Three-dimensional pruning to form would be a kind of sculpture,
called topiary. Perhaps you have observed topiary in the form of Mickey and Minnie Mouse at
Disney World. If both shoot and root pruning is done frequently, the result can be a bonsai, the
creation of a miniature tree. Frequently bonsai trees are not only dwarf in stature, but also
respond to the severe pruning by producing dwarf leaves as well. Bonsai is an art form that
involves miniature landscaping around the dwarf tree.

It might be worthy of note that an artist working in paint, marble, or bronze gets paid only once
for her/his creative work. The plant artist working in espalier, topiary, or bonsai must be paid
repeatedly to keep the work true to the original form as the work is alive and responsive! If the
artist is an entrepreneur, the choice of material would be obvious.

To demonstrate how apical dominance works, we can decapitate a shoot and thus remove the natural
source of IAA. But if we replace the apical bud with a dollop of lanolin (wool wax) with auxin dissolved in
it, apical dominance is not diminished. The lateral buds remain dormant.

The important advantages of apical dominance are;

1. The plant can grow towards the sunlight.

2. The taller plants possess apical dominance.
3. The taller trees have longer root and it extends out to many meters.
4. The longer roots help by deeply anchoring the soil. So that it can resist windstorm.
5. The longer roots also help in obtaining water from the underground soil.
6. The plants possess great heights which will increase their access to nutrients.

If apex is removed:

1. lateral bud formation,

2. "imposition of inhibition" (apical dominance),
3. initiation of lateral bud outgrowth following decapitation, and
4. Elongation and development of the lateral bud into a branch.
 III. Biological Rhythm
• Often referred to as biological clocks, since they operate on daily, monthly, seasonal, or annual
schedules.
• These internal clocks operate independent of the environment, but are controlled by
environmental conditions in changing situations.

Circadian Rhythm

The term circadian comes from the Latin circa, meaning "around" (or "approximately"), and diēm,
meaning "day". The formal study of biological temporal rhythms, such as daily, tidal, weekly, seasonal,
and annual rhythms, is called chronobiology. Processes with 24-hour oscillations are more generally
called diurnal rhythms; strictly speaking, they should not be called circadian rhythms unless their
endogenous nature is confirmed.

Although circadian rhythms are endogenous ("built-in", self-sustained), they are adjusted (entrained) to
the local environment by external cues called zeitgebers (from German, "time giver"), which include
light, temperature and redox cycles

To be called circadian, a biological rhythm must meet these three general criteria:

1. The rhythm has an endogenous free-running period that lasts approximately 24 hours.

The rhythm persists in constant conditions, (i.e., constant darkness) with a period of about 24 hours. The
period of the rhythm in constant conditions is called the free-running period and is denoted by the Greek
letter τ (tau). The rationale for this criterion is to distinguish circadian rhythms from simple responses to
daily external cues. A rhythm cannot be said to be endogenous unless it has been tested and persists in
conditions without external periodic input. In diurnal animals (active during daylight hours), in general τ
is slightly greater than 24 hours, whereas, in nocturnal animals (active at night), in general τ is shorter
than 24 hours.
 2. The rhythms are entrainable.

The rhythm can be reset by exposure to external stimuli (such as light and heat), a process called
entrainment. The external stimulus used to entrain a rhythm is called the Zeitgeber, or "time giver".
Travel across time zones illustrates the ability of the human biological clock to adjust to the local time; a
person will usually experience jet lag before entrainment of their circadian clock has brought it into sync
with local time.

3. The rhythms exhibit temperature compensation.

In other words, they maintain circadian periodicity over a range of physiological temperatures. Many
organisms live at a broad range of temperatures, and differences in thermal energy will affect the kinetics
of all molecular processes in their cell(s). In order to keep track of time, the organism's circadian clock
must maintain roughly a 24-hour periodicity despite the changing kinetics, a property known as
temperature compensation. The Q10 Temperature Coefficient is a measure of this compensating effect. If
the Q10 coefficient remains approximately 1 as temperature increases, the rhythm is considered to be
temperature-compensated.

Plant circadian rhythms tell the plant what season it is and when to flower for the best chance of attracting
pollinators. Behaviors showing rhythms include;

 leaf movement

 growth, germination

 stomatal/gas exchange

 enzyme activity

 photosynthetic activity

 fragrance emission

Circadian rhythms occur as a plant entrains to synchronize with the light cycle of its surrounding
environment. These rhythms are endogenously generated and self-sustaining and are relatively constant
over a range of ambient temperatures.

Important features include two interacting transcription-translation feedback loops:

  proteins containing PAS domains, which facilitate protein-protein interactions

 several photoreceptors that fine-tune the clock to different light conditions.

Anticipation of changes in the environment allows appropriate changes in a plant's physiological state,
conferring an adaptive advantage. A better understanding of plant circadian rhythms has applications in
agriculture, such as helping farmers stagger crop harvests to extend crop availability and securing against
massive losses due to weather.

Light is the signal by which plants synchronize their internal clocks to their environment and is sensed by
a wide variety of photoreceptors. Red and blue light are absorbed through several phytochromes and
cryptochromes. One phytochrome, phyA, is the main phytochrome in seedlings grown in the dark but
rapidly degrades in light to produce Cry1. Phytochromes B–E are more stable with phyB, the main
phytochrome in seedlings grown in the light. The cryptochrome (cry) gene is also a light-sensitive
component of the circadian clock and is thought to be involved both as a photoreceptor and as part of the
clock's endogenous pacemaker mechanism. Cryptochromes 1–2 (involved in blue–UVA) help to maintain
the period length in the clock through a whole range of light conditions.

The central oscillator generates a self-sustaining rhythm and is driven by two interacting feedback loops
that are active at different times of day. The morning loop consists of CCA1 (Circadian and Clock-
Associated 1) and LHY (Late Elongated Hypocotyl), which encode closely related MYB transcription
factors that regulate circadian rhythms in Arabidopsis, as well as PRR 7 and 9 (Pseudo-Response
Regulators.) The evening loop consists of GI (Gigantea) and ELF4, both involved in regulation of
flowering time genes.When CCA1 and LHY are overexpressed (under constant light or dark conditions),
plants become arrhythmic, and mRNA signals reduce, contributing to a negative feedback loop. Gene
expression of CCA1 and LHY oscillates and peaks in the early morning, whereas TOC1 gene expression
oscillates and peaks in the early evening. While it was previously hypothesised that these three genes
model a negative feedback loop in which over-expressed CCA1 and LHY repress TOC1 and over-
expressed TOC1 is a positive regulator of CCA1 and LHY,[55] it was shown in 2012 by Andrew Millar
and others that TOC1 in fact serves as a repressor not only of CCA1, LHY, and PRR7 and 9 in the
morning loop but also of GI and ELF4 in the evening loop. This finding and further computational
modeling of TOC1 gene functions and interactions suggest a reframing of the plant circadian clock as a
triple negative-component repressilator model rather than the positive/negative-element feedback loop
characterizing the clock in mammals
 Nature of Biological Clocks

The biological clock allows an organism to match its internal system with the time of day, so that in some
sense it could be said to "know" what the time is. Inside every cell are processes that change
rhythmically and that drive the observed rhythms. The actual mechanism of the clockwork is not known,
although recent research in organisms such as fruit flies and fungi suggests that a cycle of gene
transcription and protein synthesis is an important part. Another part of the clock is one or more
photoreceptors through which light entrains or sets the clock to match up with the daily light cycle.
Having many internal processes matched with the daily light cycle allows the plant to anticipate changes
that occur during the day, such as switching on genes associated with photosynthesis before the onset of
daylight. It also allows them to carry out incompatible processes at different times.

A biological clock that is reset by light and dark means that plants can measure the length of day and/or
night. This also allows them to tell what season it is by whether days are getting longer or shorter. Many
developmental responses are triggered by changes in the length of day, a type of behavior termed
photoperiodism. While some changes occur in response to shortening of the daylength, others occur as
days get longer. These two types of photoperiodic response were first recorded for the induction of
flowering and led to the classification of plants as short-day plants or long-day plants. Those plants that
do not respond to daylength are called day-neutral plants

There are several advantages to having developmental responses controlled by daylength. For flowering,
it means that members of a population will flower at the same time, which increases the chances of
outbreeding and thus genetic recombination. If a pollinating insect's behavior is also photoperiodically
controlled, this further improves the chance of successful pollination. Another example of the survival
value of seasonal timing of flowering is that woodland plants can flower and set seed before the dense
leaf canopy is formed. Other changes that occur in response to daylength include the formation of storage
organs such as bulbs or tubers, the onset of dormancy, and the development of cold hardiness in trees.
These changes help plants survive through the winter and are triggered by the shortening daylength
during autumn.