Talk:Gravitropism

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lfgarcia726. Peer reviewers: Spencer.Schulz, Jasonfaghih.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Agudivada95, Moore573, Ecmoore12.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great article! Really thought it was factual and informative, yet not biased. An area for improvement, a lot of words could be linked. For example, amyloplast. Some people may not know what these things are and benefit from the links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spencer.Schulz (talk • contribs) 05:17, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Keep in Wikipedia
I have updated this article. Such a topic is perfect for wikipedia. It is an area of cutting edge research as well as being of general interest due to the various horitcultural varieties with defects in this trait.David D. 16:55, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. Check out the log at WP:TL. I believe I marked as encyclopedic a while back. --Dmcdevit 05:17, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The article mentions Charles Darwin as having talked about gravitropism. Does anyone have a reference for this I could look up. I can't see any mention in Origin.Just asking out of general interest in the subject. Djj9000 (talk) 10:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci
According to the Heliotropism article, Leonardo da Vinci described this phenomenon. He should therefore be mentioned in this article. Beornas 17:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Gravitropic mutants
In the section about mutants positive and negative should be swapped, because it contradicts the statement above. Positive is normal for the root so mutant probably shows negative. Someone who has a clue about plants should commit the change.

Text deleted from Gravitropism in the root in feb 2009.
If the root cap is removed, root growth ceases to respond to gravity. The root cap is vital for gravitropism since it contains cells with sensors called statoliths, which are amyloplasts packed with starch. Amyloplasts are a type of plastid similar to chloroplasts. Statoliths are dense organelles that settle to the lowest part of the root cap cells in response to a change in the gravity vector. This initiates differential cell expansion in the root elongation zone causing a reorientation of the root growth (see below). The location of the elongation zone is many cells above the root cap, so intercellular signal transduction must occur from the site of gravity perception, in the root cap, to the growth response in the elongation zone. As of 2002, the nature of this signal is an active area of research in plant biology.

The above section was deleted in 27th February. I have placed it here as it mentions statoliths in the roots which our current article doesn't. It doesn't seem like a copyvio and it makes sense so I'll add it back. Ttiotsw (talk) 08:55, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced section that needs wikifying.
The following diff is a section that was placed after the categories. Bizarre and I think someone new to Wiki but it reads like WP:OR in the way it bullet-points stuff. What do we do with it ?. Ttiotsw (talk) 08:59, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I'm going to delete the section, it's kind of a rant Pirate Argh!!1! 12:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Upside down tree
This tree is used as an example of gravitropism. It's a great picture, but the paragraph next to it says that the stems of plants grow against gravity. The illustration appears to show a branching plant with leaves, growing with gravity, not against it. So the illustration seems to be disproving the first paragraph of the article! We probably should choose a different one, or move this illustration to the bottom of the page. Gary (talk) 18:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It is a very weird picture. It looks like an example of where the gravitropism is NOT working. 130.238.158.168 (talk) 11:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The tree is confused! Its shoots ARE showing positive gravitropism rather than negative, but it is gravitropism.Stub Mandrel (talk) 17:38, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I changed the picture for the one from the french wikipedia. The previous one looks neat but it is incredibly confusing.

-The tree is growing downwards?

-Yes, but that's not the important part, you need to zoom the picture and check the end of the tip. They all look slightly curved upwards, and that's gravitropism.

Thats's certainly correct, but that's a lot to take. If you didn't even know that plants were perceiving gravity, I am not sure what you will remember at the end. The new picture displays a tree that grow straight and vertical. It's curved at the base because of gravitropism. That should be less confusing.

Gravitropism or geotropism
Since 1990 only 12 scientific articles discuss about geotropism, whereas there are 465 articles about gravitropism. Actually the perception is the gravity in both case and the described behaviour is never related to the presence of the soil.

Geotropism is still the term used in UK science syllabus, and no doubt elsewhere, so at least a reference to it needs to be included. Stub Mandrel (talk) 17:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Gravitropism in animals
This article only mentions plants. Aren't some animals gravitropic, such as snails? DFS (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Feedback digest - most importantly: the desire for examples
In about last 10 feedback comments, most of the readers demand to see or read about some of the examples and if possible to see some illustrations of the gravitropism in action. It seemed to me the some readers - while demanding to see for which of the plants the phenomenon might be valid - didn't understand from the article that gravitropism is in fact general phenomenon valid for all the plant out there (at least all the vascular plants). One of the other helpful comments showed interest in the amount of the auxin responsible for gravitropic responses. I flagged all those comments as helpful ones and after writing this digest here, I will have them checked as resolved (I will also think about mending those concerns into the article). --R e o + 08:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Lack of explanation of the mechanism
The article only explains that auxin mediates the tropic response, but does not explain HOW the auxin comes to be more concentrated in one part of the shoot/root than the other. This is fine for GCSE level, but as this is an encyclopaedia I've copied across the section on how statoliths detect gravity from the article amyloplast. It's only a minor repetition and the information is more specific to this topic than Amyloplast.Stub Mandrel (talk) 17:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Needs proofreading!
This is a very good article: fairly comprehensive, but understandable by non-specialists. However, in a number of places, it does need editing for clarity & proof-reading of the English language for better understanding.

Hrlovick@gmail.com 184.151.230.200 (talk) 17:26, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Science.
Phototropical movement 106.206.231.73 (talk) 11:09, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Science
fabric of time 102.217.123.90 (talk) 15:46, 16 October 2023 (UTC)