Week 4 - Research Proposal

 

 

 

 

Plants have an intricate system of communication. Research has found that plants use volatile organic compounds to communicate with other nearby plants (Meents & Mithöfer, 2020, p. 1). Furthermore, research has also shown that plants use electrical signaling as a means of communication (Chen et al., 2016, p. 1). However, there is still much to learn about how and why it is that plants communicate. Plants provide essential resources for the planet and all living things. Humans rely on plant food sources for nearly 85% of their calories (Fernando, 2012, p. 1). Yet plants face many threats to their very existence, including disease, injury, herbivory, and extreme weather. (Ueda et al., 2012, p. 2). These factors contribute to the nearly 33% of crops that are lost even before they are harvested (Baker et al., 2019, p. 1). Gaining a further understanding of plant communication can help address this and many other issues.

 

 

The primary research method for this study will be experimentation. Plants will be exposed to various stressors and their resulting plant action potential will be observed with the use of an electrocardiogram.

 

 

Name	Variable	Description
Unstressed plant	Control	The plant will not be subject to any outside stressors.
Dry plant	Independent	The plant will be underwatered to stress the plant.
Flooded plant	Independent	The plant will be overwatered to stress the plant.
Cut plant	Independent	An incision will be made to the plant in order to stress the plant.
Plant action potential	Dependent	The plant action potential in response to stress will be monitored.

 

 

This research attempts to find whether plants use electric potential to signal a perceived threat to their survival.  It is my hypothesis that as the plants are subject to stress, we will see an increase in observable plant action potential.

 

 

 

 

 

Citations

           

Baker, G. A., Gray, L. C., Harwood, M. J., Osland, T. J., & Tooley, J. B. C.

     (2019). On-farm food loss in northern and central california: Results of

     field survey measurements. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 149,

     541-549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.03.022

           

Chen, Y., Zhao, D.-J., Wang, Z.-Y., Wang, Z.-Y., Tang, G., & Huang, L. (2016).

     Plant electrical signal classification based on waveform similarity.

     Algorithms, 9(4), 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/a9040070

 

Fernando, W.g. D. (2012). Plants: An international scientific open access

     journal to publish all facets of plants, their functions and interactions

     with the environment and other living organisms. Plants, 1(1), 1-5.

     https://doi.org/10.3390/plants1010001

 

                       

Meents, A. K., & Mithöfer, A. (2020). Plant–Plant communication: Is there a

     role for volatile damage-associated molecular patterns? Frontiers in Plant

     Science, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.583275

                        

           

Ueda, H., Kikuta, Y., & Matsuda, K. (2012). Plant communication. Plant Signaling

     & Behavior, 7(2), 222-226. https://doi.org/10.4161/psb.18765