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The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones

Pine cones show functionally highly resilient, hygroscopically actuated opening and closing movements, which are repeatable and function even in millions of years old, coalified cones. Although the functional morphology and biomechanics behind the individual seed scale motions are well understood, t...

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Autores principales: Horstmann, Martin, Buchheit, Hannah, Speck, Thomas, Poppinga, Simon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9623100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36330256
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.982756
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author Horstmann, Martin
Buchheit, Hannah
Speck, Thomas
Poppinga, Simon
author_facet Horstmann, Martin
Buchheit, Hannah
Speck, Thomas
Poppinga, Simon
author_sort Horstmann, Martin
collection PubMed
description Pine cones show functionally highly resilient, hygroscopically actuated opening and closing movements, which are repeatable and function even in millions of years old, coalified cones. Although the functional morphology and biomechanics behind the individual seed scale motions are well understood, the initial opening of the cone, which is often accompanied by an audible cracking noise, is not. We therefore investigated the initial opening events of mature fresh cones of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and their subsequent motion patterns. Using high-speed and time lapse videography, 3D digital image correlation techniques, force measurements, thermographic and chemical-rheological resin analyses, we are able to draw a holistic picture of the initial opening process involving the rupture of resin seals and very fast seed scale motion in the millisecond regime. The rapid cone opening was not accompanied by immediate seed release in our experiments and, therefore, cannot be assigned to ballistochory. As the involved passive hydraulic-elastic processes in cracking are very fine-tuned, we hypothesize that they are under tight mechanical-structural control to ensure an ecologically optimized seed release upon environmental conditions suitable for wind dispersal. In this context, we propose an interplay of humidity and temperature to be the external “drivers” for the initial cone opening, in which resin works as a crucial chemical-mechanical latch system.
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spelling pubmed-96231002022-11-02 The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones Horstmann, Martin Buchheit, Hannah Speck, Thomas Poppinga, Simon Front Plant Sci Plant Science Pine cones show functionally highly resilient, hygroscopically actuated opening and closing movements, which are repeatable and function even in millions of years old, coalified cones. Although the functional morphology and biomechanics behind the individual seed scale motions are well understood, the initial opening of the cone, which is often accompanied by an audible cracking noise, is not. We therefore investigated the initial opening events of mature fresh cones of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and their subsequent motion patterns. Using high-speed and time lapse videography, 3D digital image correlation techniques, force measurements, thermographic and chemical-rheological resin analyses, we are able to draw a holistic picture of the initial opening process involving the rupture of resin seals and very fast seed scale motion in the millisecond regime. The rapid cone opening was not accompanied by immediate seed release in our experiments and, therefore, cannot be assigned to ballistochory. As the involved passive hydraulic-elastic processes in cracking are very fine-tuned, we hypothesize that they are under tight mechanical-structural control to ensure an ecologically optimized seed release upon environmental conditions suitable for wind dispersal. In this context, we propose an interplay of humidity and temperature to be the external “drivers” for the initial cone opening, in which resin works as a crucial chemical-mechanical latch system. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9623100/ /pubmed/36330256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.982756 Text en Copyright © 2022 Horstmann, Buchheit, Speck and Poppinga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Horstmann, Martin
Buchheit, Hannah
Speck, Thomas
Poppinga, Simon
The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title_full The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title_fullStr The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title_full_unstemmed The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title_short The cracking of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) cones
title_sort cracking of scots pine (pinus sylvestris) cones
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9623100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36330256
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.982756
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