User:Currytrain/sandbox

Rapid Plant Movement
These rapid plant movements differ from the more common, but much slower "growth-movements" of plants, called tropisms. A variety of mechanisms are utilized by plants in order to achieve these fast movements. Extremely fast movements such as the explosive seed dispersal techniques of Sphagnum mosses may involve increasing internal pressure via dehydration, causing a sudden propulsion of spores up or through the rapid opening of flower opening triggered by insect pollination. Fast movement can also be expressed in predatory plants, where the mechanical stimulation of insect movement creates an electrical action potential and a release of elastic energy within the plant tissues. This release can be seen in the closing of a Venus flytrap, the curling of sundew leaves, and in the trapdoor action and suction of bladderworts.

Slower movement such as the folding of Mimosa pudica leaves may depend on reversible, but drastic or uneven changes in water pressure in the plant tissues. This process is controlled by the fluctuation of ions in and out of the cell, and the osmotic response of water to the ion flux.

Rapid Plant Movement
These rapid plant movements differ from the more common, but much slower "growth-movements" of plants, called tropisms. A variety of mechanisms are utilized by plants in order to achieve these fast movements. Extremely fast movements such as the explosive seed dispersal techniques of Sphagnum mosses may involve increasing internal pressure via dehydration, causing a sudden propulsion of spores up or through the rapid opening of flower opening triggered by insect pollination. Slower movement such as the folding of Mimosa leaves may depend on reversible, but drastic or uneven changes in water pressure in the plant tissues.

In predatory plants, the mechanical stimulation of insect movement causes a release of elastic energy within the plant tissues. This release can be expressed in ways such as the closing of a Venus flytrap, or in the trapdoor and suction of bladderworts.

(I'll need to read up on the fast opening of flowers that's discussed in Mechanics without Muscle because it seems less mechanistic and more of just an example. I might have to spend a little more time with the actual mechanisms before I can confidently summarize and fit it in the section.)

Fastest predators in the plant kingdom: functional morphology and biomechanics of suction traps found in the largest genus of carnivorous plants Slow, fast and furious: understanding the physics of plant movements Mechanics without Muscle: Biomechanical Inspiration from the Plant World

Botany Page
I feel the article is pretty solid. There are a few things that are only given a description that could maybe be refined (ie. plant ecology's "Herbivores eat plants, but plants can defend themselves and some species are parasitic or even carnivorous," but having so much more for examples of interactions with pollinators), but it's good. Personally, I don't think the sentence "However, attention is still given to [land plants] by botanists, and fungi (including lichens) and photosynthetic protists are usually covered in introductory botany courses" fits well in the context of the page. It makes the rest of the section fit (discussing the subsets of botany) but I don't think it makes sense within scope and importance. The inclusion of fungi and photosynthetic protists also seems to be a anecdotal or personal thing. There is very little conversation going on in the Talk section, and in the history of edits it seems like whatever is edited in is fairly quickly removed, which makes me think that given a less cursory read-through may yield dated information.

Plant Physiology Page
Compared to the botany page, it's really tiny. :< Only one topic in the talk about surface tension, and very dated edits. The lack of new information for this page is observable when you get to the current research and food production/economic uses of plant physiology. There's a lot that could be added to both, but they're both basically stubs. Something about the style of writing or organization seems a bit all over the place compared to that on the botany page, probably also due to the lack of editors to the page. It doesn't really make sense to have a table for elements that plants use, yet only list out the hormones and the functions that they serve, though it's a bit more understandable as there's a link to plant hormones and not plant nutrients.

Seed Dispersal
|Seed Dispersal Going through the article, it seems like there could be some reorganization of the topics. For instance, the types of dispersal methods are split between the types and the benefits section of the article, making it seems somewhat repetitive or illogical (ie. dispersal by ants/myrmecochory is mentioned in benefits before it's discussed in detail in the Types category). Topics that are discussed in the talk portion of the page involves including things such as dispersal syndromes, but it seems like it might be a confounding topics to include--especially considering there's already |This detailing it. Since seed dispersal is related to the page |Biological dispersal, I checked out that page as well. The portion that is about plant dispersal mechanisms is literally copy/pasted from the page which seems kinda weird and unhelpful if one were to go on the seed dispersal page for more information.

Revising the seed dispersal page could happen with:
 * Revising both the Benefits and Types subcategories, so that they present a better progression of information
 * Possibly going into detail about the types of cues and mechanisms involved in seed dispersal, like ethylene gas ensuring that a greater number of fruits are available
 * Include benefits about dispersal methods that aren't reliant on zoochory, and make the dispersal syndrome page more obvious or mentioned within the article, rather than mentioned at the end as a related article.
 * Adding additional information or something more in-depth to the introduction portion of the article, so that it is not just the same information between the two pages

A few articles that could be valuable to editing this article may be "The adaptive value of cued seed dispersal in desert plants...," which would provide another example of a benefit provided by seed dispersal while also being an example of a serotinous plant utilizing methods of dispersal. There is also an article concerning the long distance dispersal of seeds and species through bird migration in "Overseas seed dispersal by migratory birds," which could replace the somewhat vague paragraph concerning dispersal of seeds into new geographical areas.

Rewording and rewriting the paragraph in question could be something like: "Seed dispersal may allow plants to colonize vacant habitats and new geographic regions. Oftentimes, these methods of seed dispersal are passive, such as via ocean currents and migratory birds. These longer distance dispersal methods may also utilize diplochory, the sequential dispersal by two or more different dispersal methods." (I don't really know what the difference between diplochory and dispersal syndrome, so I would have to read up on both of those issues before making major changes.)

Rapid Plant Movement
|Rapid Plant Movement (This is listed as Rapid Plant Movements on the article evaluation page, but including the 's' links to an empty page.) As mentioned in the talk portion of the page, the page lacks many details concerning the mechanism behind rapid plant movement. The page as it stands is currently just a definition of what rapid plant movement is (a growth tropism), as well as a list of examples without going into detail about any of them. My suggestions for revising the page would be to: Searching up some sources about rapid plant movement yields an article entitled "Faster than their prey: New insights into the rapid movements of active carnivorous plants traps" as well as "Rapid Movements of Plants Organs Require Solute-Water Cotransporters or Contractile Proteins."
 * split the introduction portion of the article into two parts: a definition, and basic mechanism for how it occurs
 * clean up the list of plants that may exhibit rapid plant movement so that it is consistent between subcategories. For instance, pollen dispersal has the example of "Some Fabaceae have beans that twist as they dry out, putting tension on the seam, which at some point will split suddenly and violently, spraying the seeds metres from the maternal plant," but these extra details are missing within the other two lists. Additionally, only of the species includes a common name "(aka dogwood bunchberry, Cornus canadensis)," which should be removed
 * potentially include reasons why a plant may need to exhibit rapid plant movement within each subcategory ie. predatory plants requiring rapid plant movement for nutrient acquisition
 * search for more sources in general that is related to plant movement. A great amount of the articles are from JSTOR, and even then the page is quite simply a field guide-like description of the plant in question.

Using the first source: "A variety of mechanisms may be involved in rapid movement in plants such as changes in elastic energy and changes in turgor or hydraulic pressure. Turgor driven motion--utilized by plants such as Mimosa--occurs when the cells of a particular organ experiences a drastic change in turgidity, allowing for motion to occur. [more stuff about ion transport that occurs maybe, and then stuff about elastic energy]"