this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
49 points (94.5% liked)
Asklemmy
43729 readers
1333 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A food-for-thought question from a biochemist who doesn't know much about water lilies specifically: your question assumes that it's the opening/closing that requires energy, but another possible mechanism might be if the default, relaxed position was closed, and energy needed to be expended during the day to keep the flower open (or the inverse, where the open position is the default, relaxed position, but then at night, energy is continually expended to keep it closed). I suggest this based on how I know many of the molecular mechanisms of plants rely on turgidity (swollenness from water) to evoke structural changes.
It doesn't change the question materially, it just involves looking at the question from different angles. I don't know much about water lilies though, I didn't even know that they close at night. I might report back here if I find anything interesting.
Okay, well this is actually super cool, thanks for driving my attention there. It seems that the word for this particular behaviour is "Nyctinasty
I think the short answer to your question appears to be "we don't know", because nyctinasty has been observed for millennia but there isn't a clear, conclusive answer. In some plants that are open at night, it may be that they are pollinated by bats or nocturnal insects, but one of the open questions here is "does nocturnal nyctinasty happen via the same mechanism as diurnal nyctinasty?". By that, I mean "does a nocturnal plant (like moonflower) use the same 'muscles' as a plant that's open during day, like water lily?".
I don't recall it mentioning water lilies, but a book that you'd probably enjoy if you're curious about this stuff is What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz. I remember there is some really interesting stuff in there about plant circadian rhythms, and the information is presented in an accessible and entertaining manner