Environmental morphing enables informed dispersal of the dandelion diaspore
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
- Utrecht University, Netherlands
- Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom
- University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Animal migration is highly sensitised to environmental cues, but plant dispersal is considered largely passive. The common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, bears an intricate haired pappus facilitating flight. The pappus enables the formation of a separated vortex ring during flight; however, the pappus structure is not static but reversibly changes shape by closing in response to moisture. We hypothesised that this leads to changed dispersal properties in response to environmental conditions. Using wind tunnel experiments for flow visualisation, particle image velocimetry, and flight tests we characterised the fluid mechanics effects of the pappus morphing. We also modelled dispersal to understand the impact of pappus morphing on diaspore distribution. Pappus morphing dramatically alters the fluid mechanics of diaspore flight. We found that when the pappus closes in moist conditions, the drag coefficient decreases and thus the falling velocity is greatly increased. Detachment of diaspores from the parent plant also substantially decreases. The change in detachment when the pappus closes increases dispersal distances by reducing diaspore release when wind speeds are low. We propose that moisture-dependent pappus-morphing is a form of informed dispersal allowing rapid responses to changing conditions.
Data availability
The Source data for all figures has been deposited to Zenodo, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7038366
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Environmental morphing enables informed dispersal of the dandelion diasporeZenodo, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7038366.
Article and author information
Author details
Ignazio Maria Viola
Funding
Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2016-255)
- Enrico Mastropaolo
- Ignazio Maria Viola
- Naomi Nakayama
Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2019-424)
- Madeleine Seale
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (P011586/1 and T006153/1)
- Michael R Blatt
European Commission (ERC-2020-COG 101001499)
- Ignazio Maria Viola
Royal Society (UF140640 and URF-R-201035)
- Naomi Nakayama
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2022, Seale et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Environmental morphing enables informed dispersal of the dandelion diaspore
eLife 11:e81962.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.81962
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