Nutrients clearly limit the growth of plants. Explain four ways that plants have adapted to increase access to nutrients and what limits the association from becoming more common.
What will be an ideal response?
Mycorrhizal associations are very common in plants. This plant root-fungal association promotes the
uptake of water and some essential ions, especially phosphate. Presumably, even though there is a
carbon cost to the plant to maintain the association, its commonness suggests that the benefits are
great. Nitrogen-fixing plants are plants that form a bacterial mutualistic association with the roots of
plants in the legume family. While the legume family contains many species, this association is
relatively rare. Presumably, this association is not more common, that is, found in many species in
many families, because it is costly to the plant. Some plants supplement their mineral nutritional
requirements by digesting animals. Presumably, this adaptation is evolutionarily restricted to very
nutrient poor environments. Other plants have evolved mechanisms to parasitize other plant species to
obtain nutrients, including in some cases, sugars. There are many species of epiphytes, which grow on
other plants and trap falling debris or water, where the roots absorb nutrients from it as the litter
decomposes. Finally, some plant species have been found to take up organic nutrients in the form of
amino acids. Like carnivorous plants, this adaptation appears to be very restricted to nutrient poor
environments, although this phenomenon has just started to be examined.
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The amino acid referred to as the "helix breaker" (because it lacks the hydrogen atom needed for hydrogen bonding) is
A) leucine. B) proline. C) methionine. D) valine. E) phenylalanine.
List the steps involved in constructing a knockout mutant in yeast
What will be an ideal response?
Some ribosomes are suspended in the cytosol of a cell, whereas other ribosomes ________
A) make proteins inside the nucleus B) are found on the plasma membrane C) are attached to the smooth endoplasmic reticulum D) are attached to the outside of the nucleus
The __________ that facilitates cytokinesis in animal cells cannot work with plant cells because a stiff cell wall
surrounds their __________. Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).