Surprisingly, some plants grow faster, reach larger sizes than normal, and reproduce more successfully, having been partially eaten by herbivores.
Researchers have discovered that one of the secrets of success of these plants face of adversity is its ability to duplicate their chromosomes over and over again without undergoing cell division.
Although this process, called endoreduplication, is not new to science, no previous study had examined in relation to the seemingly miraculous explosion of growth and reproductive potential that occurs in many plants having been partially meals.
The team of Ken Paige and Daniel Scholes, University of Illinois, analyzed the Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant that repeatedly doubles its chromosomes in some cell types.
The plant starts with only 10 chromosomes (five from each parent), but after repeated duplications, some cells contain up to 320 chromosomes.
The additional DNA content could allow plants to increase production of proteins needed for growth and reproduction. More DNA also means larger cells. If there is more DNA in the nucleus, it carries a greater volume that have nuclear, which makes the entire cell is larger. The increase in the size of individual cells may lead to an increase in overall plant size.
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