Chapter 9 - Transport in Plants Flashcards
Suggest and explain 3 reasons why multicellular plants need transport systems
- Metabolic demands, many underground and internal parts of plant can’t make own food etc. O2 and glucose needs to be transported to them and waste products removed
- Size, plants continue to grow * need effective transport system to move substances up and down tip of roots
- SA:VOL ratio, leaves are adapted to have large SA:VOL for GE, but still have a small SA:VOL bc of trunk, stem etc * cannot rely on diffusion alone
What are dicotyledonous plants?
-make seeds that contain two cotyledons (food stores for developing plant and forms the first leaf in germination)
Describe the two types of dicotyledonous plants
Herbaceous dicots - soft tissue and short life cycle
Woody dicots - hard lignified tissues + long life cycle
Name the parts of the vascular bundle
Xylem
Phloem
Cambium
Draw and label a diagram of the stem of a plant
- epidermis
- cortex
- phloem
- xylem
- vascular bundle
- parenchyma
Explain the function of the xylem in plants
- Transport of water and mineral ions
- Support the plant
Describe the structure of the xylem
Xylem vessels- long hollow structures made of long column cells
Thick-walled xylem parenchyma - packs around xylem vessels storing food, contains tannin (bitter chemical to protect plant)
Fibres- long cells with lignified secondary walls that provide extra mechanical strength but don’t transport water
How is lignin adapted in the xylem for maximum support?
Laid in spirals, rings or tubes w unlignified areas (boarded pits)
Suggest the role of the phloem
Living tissue that transports food in form of organic solutes around plant from the leaves, supplies cells w sugars and aa needed for cellular respiration
What are the phloems main transport vessels?
Sieve tube element cells, cells joined end to end to form long hollow structure
Are phloem tubes lignified?
No
What forms in between the cells in phloem tissue?
Walls become perforated to form sieve plates, let phloem contents through * tube is filled with phloem sap
What structures break down in the phloem because of the large pores?
Cell walls, tonoplast (vacuole membrane), nucleus and other organelles
What are companion cells?
Cells that link to the sieve tube elements by many plasmodesmata
-function of life support for sieve TEC which have lost most of its OG function
Why do plants need water?
- Turgor pressure (hydrostatic pre) bc of osmosis in plant cells provides hydrostatic skeleton to support stems and leaves
- Turgor drives cell expansion, the force enables plant to grow through tarmac
- Loss of water by evaporation helps keep plant cool
- Mineral ions and products of photosynthesis are transported in aq sol
- Raw material for photosynthesis
Suggest how RHC are adapted to carry out its function (5 marks)
Function: to take up water from soil into plant
- Microscopic size-> can penetrate easily through soil particles
- Each hair large SA:VOL
- large SA bc there are so many
- Each hair thin surface layer so diff and osmosis is rapid
- Conc of solutes in cytoplasm of RHC maintains a water potential gradient between soil water and cell
Explain how water moves into the RHC from the soil
- Soil has low conc of dissolved minerals * high wp
- Cytoplasm and vacuolar sap of RHC has many solvents (aa, sugars) so wp low
- Water moves into RHC via osmosis
Name the 3 ways water can move across the root
Symplast pathway
Apoplast
Vacuolar
Describe the mechanism when water moves through the symplast across the root
Through the cell
-RHC has higher wp than the next cell along -> water diffuses from into cell from soil
- Makes the cytoplasm more dilute (higher wp) so water moves into next cell via osmosis
- As water leaves RHC by osmosis, wp of cytoplasm falls again, maintains a step water potential grad to ensure max water is moved
Explain how water moves across the root via apoplast pathway
Water moves across cells walls and intercellular spaces, fills spaces btwn loose open network of fibres in cellulose cell wall
- As water moves towards the xylem more water mol. are drawn due to the cohesion of water mol.
- The pull creates tension meaning there is a continuous flow of water through open structure of the cellulose cell wall
- Cellulose cell wall offers little resistance
Describe the movement of water into the xylem (6 marks)
Water diffuses across root via symplast and apoplast pathways
- Until it reaches the endodermis (cells surrounding vascular bun)
- Reaches casparian strip
- Due to the ability of the casparian strip to be waterproof
- The water travelling through the apoplast pathway is forces out into cytoplasm
What is the casparian strip?
A band of waxy material (suberin) that runs around each of the endodermal cells forming a waterproof layer
What is the function of the casparian strip?
Filters the water as it has to pass the selective permeability cell surface membrane, it removes any toxic solutes
What increases the rate of water moving into xylem by osmosis?
- Solute conc in cytoplasm of endodermal cells is more dilute compared to cells in xylem
- and the endodermal cells move mineral ions into xylem by active transport
- wp of xylem cells is lower than the wp of the endodermal cells
- Increasing the rate of water moving into xylem by osmosis down a water potential grad from the endodermis through the symplast pathway
What happens to the water once it’s inside the vascular bundle?
Water returns to the apoplast pathway to enter the xylem and move up the plant
What causes root pressure?
Active pumping of minerals into xylem to produce movement of water by osmosis causes root pressure