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Whether you are working with a specific plant and need to know more about its specifics or just need general knowledge for any plants you may come across, learning about the anatomy of plants can be very beneficial.  Knowing the anatomy of a plant allows for a greater understanding of how to deal with them in any situation, no matter if it is for food, gardening, or simple observation.

For something like food preparation, knowing more about the specifics of the anatomy of the plant you're working with will allow you to have a much easier time deciding on which parts would be the best for consumption and how you should go about removing them from the rest. Many of the plant-based foods we have today wouldn't have been possible without those who had extensive knowledge of how the plant worked and what they should do to get the most out of it.

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One of the most important reasons for the everyday person to know about plants and what they require to grow, is that of crop rotation. This simple concept is used all the time in the farming of plants used everyday across the world.

Following the growth and harvesting of a certain crop, farmers are known to plant completely different plants in its place, with the goal of replenishing the soil to allow for greater harvests after the rotation. Plants require many nutrients and specific soil conditions to grow properly and yield good results. Without crop rotation many of the common household foods would be much harder to come by and would reach significantly higher price points. This rotation is enough to save the average person a lot of strife in their day to day life.

Not only is knowing about this important for commercial farming, but for ones own personal farming as well. If someone were to ever attempt to grow things in their own backyard time after time, they may eventually grow frustrated at the fact that their tomatoes are no longer as fruitful as they once were. Simply knowing more about how they grow and what needs to replenished in the soil would make their life far easier.

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SDState Agriculture, Food & Environmental Sciences

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Plants over time have evolved to make up for something their environment may lack or to put themselves at a better competitive advantage against others. Eventually, certain plants found that it would be more advantageous to develop shallower roots and find another way to get the majority of their nutrients.

Their leaves slowly changed and they began producing new ways of attracting insects and small animals to them. With their increasing efficiency in procuring a new food source, they were able to take over the areas they grew in as a strong competitor in the food chain.

The changes these plants have undergone can be good knowledge for anyone who may want to grow them or knows that they live near them. It will allow them to know what to do in order to provide better care for them or why certain bugs might be around more often then others.

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(Image credit: Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova/Shutterstock)

About 70 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a genetic anomaly allowed some plants to turn into meat eaters. This was done in part, with a stealthy trick: repurposing genes meant for their roots and leaves and using them instead to catch prey, a new study finds.

This step is one of three that some non-carnivorous plants took over tens of millions of years to allow them to turn into hungry carnivores, the researchers said.

The meat-eating shift gave these plants a number of advantages. In effect, "carnivorous plants have turned the tables by capturing and consuming nutrient-rich animal prey, enabling them to thrive in nutrient-poor soil," the researchers wrote in the study, published online May 14 in the journal Current Biology.

To investigate how carnivorous plants , an international team of botanists and biologists led by Jörg Schultz, Associate Professor, at the University of Würzburg, Germany, compared the genomes and anatomy of three modern meat-eating plants

There are hundreds of carnivorous plant species, but the researchers chose to look at three related insect-eating plants, all members of the Droseraceae family. All three of these plants use motion to capture prey, the researchers said.

One plant is the familiar Venus flytrap ( Dionaea muscipula), a native to the wetlands of the Carolinas that has influenced Pokémon characters, made appearances in various Saturday morning cartoons, and even inspired a Broadway play. The closely related aquatic waterwheel plant ( Aldrovanda vesiculosa) occupies the waters of almost every continent. It has spindly underwater flaps that quickly tighten around unsuspecting marine animals. The third plant investigated, the beautiful but deadly plant ( Drosera spatulata), is common in Australia. Luring victims with sweetness, the sundew rolls up a sticky strip around its catch.

After analyzing these plants, the team discovered the three-step process toward . First, about 70 million years ago, an early non-carnivorous ancestor of the three modern plant carnivores underwent a whole-genome duplication, generating a second copy of its entire , or genome. This duplication freed up one of the copies of leaf and root genes to diversify, allowing them to serve other functions. Some leaf genes developed into genes for traps, while carnivorous nutrition and absorption processes were guided by genes that otherwise would have served roots seeking nutrition from soil.

The second step in their journey to carnivory occurred once the plants began receiving new nutrients from prey. At that point, traditional leaves and roots were no longer as necessary. Many genes that were not involved in carnivorous nutrition began to disappear. For instance, seedlings of aquatic waterwheel plants acquire an early proto-root, but it fails to develop as they mature. This is the only remnant of what once was a root system. As a result of losing this gene and others, the three plants observed in this study are the gene-poorest plants to be sequenced to date, the researchers stated.

Two by other groups of scientists in 2013 showed similar gene-poor findings in other carnivorous plants. They found that an aquatic bladderwort thriving on all continents but Antarctica and a corkscrew ground-covering plant native to Brazil both had very small genomes compared with non-carnivorous plants. These carnivores may also have undergone the same gene-shedding process, the researchers of the new study said.

In the third step of the transformation to carnivory, the plants underwent evolutionary changes specific to their environment. The roots and leaves evolved to be trap-specific, the researchers found. Genes for roots that were once used to seek out and absorb nutrients from soil were now commandeered to create enzymes needed to digest and absorb nutrients from prey. Genes once used in glands that secreted nectar to attract pollinating insects were summoned to traps, where they produce substances to attract prey.

Most plants with leaves and roots contain the material necessary to become carnivorous. Researchers wrote that the three-step process revealed by the new study shows how, over time, ancient "non-carnivorous plants evolved into the most skillful green hunters on the planet."

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(Image credit: Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova/Shutterstock) About 70 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a genetic anomaly allowed some plants to turn into meat eaters. This was done in part, with a stealthy trick: repurposing genes meant for their roots and leaves and using them instead to catch prey, a new study finds.

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Following the Mexican asteroid impact 66 million years ago, a large extinction event occurred, wiping out plants and animals alike. Ecosystems everywhere collapsed as they could no longer thrive where they were.

This paved the way for the development of new life to take its place. Competition for successful growth would have been strong as all forms of life would be trying to adapt to the changing landscape and now abundant sunlight.

Over the course of 6 million years, what had once been open forests had been dominated by flowering, dense, closed-canopy forests. Plants here would either grow as far into the sky as they could for sunlight or would be forced to adapt in ways that would allow them to live on without it.

It took the Amazon region a long time to recover from the devastating blow from the asteroid and by the time it had regained the diversity it once had, it had completely changed.

Studying this drastic shift in biome following a mass extinction event is very important as it will give scientists a view into what trends it might follow in a similar situation or how it will react and adapt to the amount of human disturbance it now goes through on a daily basis.

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Study shows it took the Amazon as we know it over 6 million years to form

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The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed more than 75% of all species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, triggered an ecological catastrophe that took the neotropical rainforests around 6 million years to recover from, according to a recent study published in Science.

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The domestication of plants has been a long process from the early Neolithic days. It is the reason for the staple crops we have today and the basis of our current way of life.

Without the domestication of plants, the development of cities, and eventually states and countries, wouldn't have been possible as ancient people wouldn't have had a reason to settle down.  Every innovation has come about because of these developments.

The major crops continue to shape the way we live, as they make up the basis for most of the way society runs. So much is dependent on these crops, especially corn, that if something were to happen to them, then the production of not only food but many other products would suffer greatly because of it.

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The history of the world according to corn - Chris A. Kniesly

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The domestication of plants was the driving force behind the development of modern societies. Having such a readily available helped early people settle down and create the building blocks for the development of cities and trade routes.

As nations continued to develop over the centuries, they continued to build upon agriculture in order to support the increasing populations and economy.

Every aspect of industrialization followed the advancements that came from the desire to improve the yield of crops and the speed at which they could be accessed.

Most, if not everything, of what we have today is a direct result of the agricultural revolution. Without it, the push towards industrialization and technological advancements would never have been as strong as it was and continues to be.

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The Agricultural Revolution was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the century to 1770 and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world.

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The usage of medicinal plants goes as far back as the prehistoric age and has only improved over time.

From the developments in ancient Egypt and Greece, to the rediscoveries in the medieval eras, which eventually lead to the extraction and synthesis of more complicated drugs. Many of the recorded remedies applied to these ancient herbs has been the leading factor behind their continued usage today.

The majority of pharmaceutical drugs on the market today find their roots in the chemicals contained in plants. Thanks to modern science the extraction and synthesis has been easier than ever, allowing for mass production and lower prices than people were able to find in the past.

Without the intense study and testing of medicinal plants in the past, the majority of what we use to keep ourselves healthy wouldn't exist. The legacy of those plants is so important to keeping our society alive and functioning.

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Ethnobotany is the study of how people of a particular culture and region make use of indigenous (native) plants. Plants provide food, medicine, shelter, dyes, fibers, oils, resins, gums, soaps, waxes, latex, tannins, and even contribute to the air we breathe. Many native peoples also use plants in…

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Unit 8 : Plant Domestication and its Effects

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Unit 8 : Plant Domestication and its Effects

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The domestication of plants was one of the greatest feats of the prehistoric people, allowing for the creation of society as we know it.

However, due to this, it has been that society that is creating its own downfall. As technologies have improved and the population has grown, the negative impact humans have on the Earth has grown to an extremely concerning degree. What was once our greatest achievement has become just another way that we exploit and harm the land we live on.

With agriculture being the basis for our entire way of life, one would think that we would do better with it, yet as time goes on, our desires to create greater crop yields at lower costs with no regard to the environment has backed us into a corner. Now we are facing the intense pressure of global warming and the consequences of our actions.

Yet plants are also our best way to fix what has happened. Their important role in the world leaves them as the perfect tool to create a better future.

New technologies are now being developed with the goal of using plants in a way that allows for our impacted to be significantly lessened and, hopefully, one day they could be reversed to some degree. Many of the important developments come in the form of plant-based fuels and materials that are significantly less harmful than the fossil fuels we are accustomed to. They allow for the materials to be reused or composted after use which in turn can be used to promote the growth of more plants for future use.

With the practice of more sustainable farming methods, it is also becoming easier to cultivate crops in a way that isn't as damaging as the massive commercial farms that have dominated the market, allowing for consumers to find products that will allow them to cut down on their own ecological impact.

With the ever-growing population and the needs that come with that, the importance of creating a more sustainable society is only growing with it. It is the only way to continue the healthy lives of not only the human race but the world's ecosystem as well and none of it would be possible without the influence of plants.

They have truly domesticated us as much as we have domesticated them.

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Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Biología y Geología, Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, c/Tulipán s/n, Móstoles, 28933, Spain.

² Departamento Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Carretera de Utrera km. 1, Sevilla, 41013, Spain.

³ Department of Biology and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.

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Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Biología y Geología, Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, c/Tulipán s/n, Móstoles, 28933, Spain.

² Departamento Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Carretera de Utrera km. 1, Sevilla, 41013, Spain.

³ Department of Biology and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.

Abstract

Domestication took plants from natural environments to agro-ecosystems, where resources are generally plentiful and plant life is better buffered against environmental risks such as drought or pathogens. We hypothesized that predictions derived from the comparison of low vs high resource ecosystems (faster-growing plants promoting faster nutrient cycling in the latter) extrapolate to the process of domestication. We conducted the first comprehensive assessment of the consequences of domestication on litter quality and key biogeochemical processes by comparing 24 domesticated crops against their closest wild ancestors. Twelve litter chemistry traits, litter decomposability and indicators of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling were assessed in each domesticated vs wild ancestor pair. These assessments were done in microbial-poor and microbial-rich soils to exemplify intensively and extensively managed agricultural soils, respectively. Plant domestication has increased litter quality, encouraging litter decomposability (36% and 44% increase in the microbial-rich and microbial-poor soils, respectively), higher soil NO3 - availability and lower soil C : N ratios. These effects held true for the majority of the crops surveyed and for soils with different microbial communities. Our results support ecological theory predictions derived from the comparison of low- and high-resource ecosystems, suggesting a parallelism between ecosystem-level impacts of natural and artificial selection.

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national center for biotechnology information

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Side-effects of plant domestication: ecosystem impacts of changes in litter quality - PubMed

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Domestication took plants from natural environments to agro-ecosystems, where resources are generally plentiful and plant life is better buffered against environmental risks such as drought or pathogens. We hypothesized that predictions derived from the comparison of low vs high resource ecosystems ...