Gravitropism

Gravitropism (also known as geotropism) is a turning or growth movement by a plant or fungus in response to gravity. It is a general feature of all higher and many lower plants as well as other organisms. Charles Darwin was one of the first to scientifically document that roots show positive gravitropism and stems show negative gravitropism. That is, roots grow in the direction of gravitational pull (i.e., downward) and stems grow in the opposite direction (i.e., upwards). This behavior can be easily demonstrated with any potted plant. When laid onto its side, the growing parts of the stem begin to display negative gravitropism, growing (biologists say, turning; see tropism) upwards. Herbaceous (non-woody) stems are capable of a small degree of actual bending, but most of the redirected movement occurs as a consequence of root or stem growth outside.

Root growth occurs by division of stem cells in the root meristem located in the tip of the root, and the subsequent expansion of cells in a region just primal to the tip known as the elongation zone. Differential growth during tropisms mainly involves changes in cell expansion versus changes in cell division, although a role for cell division in tropic growth has not been formally ruled out. Gravity is sensed in the root tip and this information must then be relayed to the elongation zone so as to maintain growth direction and mount effective growth responses to changes in orientation and continue to grow its roots in the same direction as gravity.

Abundant evidence demonstrates that roots bend in response to gravity due to a regulated movement of the plant hormone auxin known as polar auxin transport. This was described in the 1920s in the Cholodny-Went model. The model was independently proposed by the Russian scientist N. Cholodny of the University of Kiev in 1927 and by Frits Went of the California Institute of Technology in 1928, both based on work they had done in 1926. Auxin exists in nearly every organ and tissue of a plant, but its has been reoriented in the gravity field, can initiate differential growth resulting in root curvature.

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