Microspines in tropical climbing plants: A small-scale fix for life in an obstacle course

Lehnebach Romain, Paul-Victor Cloé, Courric Elisa, Rowe Nick P.. 2022. Microspines in tropical climbing plants: A small-scale fix for life in an obstacle course. Journal of Experimental Botany, 73 (16) : 5650-5670.

Url - jeu de données - Entrepôt autre : https://zenodo.org/record/6543291#.YpGAWqjMJPY

Résumé : Many climbing plants have microspines on their stems, which facilitate attachment and prevent slipping and falling from host plant supports. Extending via growth through complex environments and anchoring stems to substrates with minimal contact forces are key benefits for climbing plants. Microspines are also highly desirable features for new technologies and applications in soft robotics. Using a novel sled-like device, we investigated static and sliding attachment forces generated by stems in 10 species of tropical climber from French Guiana differing in size and climbing habit. Eight species showed higher static and sliding forces when their stems were pulled in the basal direction against a standard surface than in the apical direction. This anisotropic behaviour suggests that tropical climbers have evolved different ratchet-like mechanisms that allow easy sliding forwards but are resistant to slipping downwards. The presence of a downwards 'stick-and-slip' phenomenon, where static attachment is not significantly stronger than maximal sliding attachment, was present in most species apart from three showing relatively weak attachment by microspines. This indicates that diverse microspine attachment strategies exist in climbing plants. This diversity of functional properties offers a range of potential design specifications for climbing strategies on different substrates for artificial climbing artefacts.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : zone tropicale, plante hôte, Port grimpant, plante grimpante, tige

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Guyane française, France

Mots-clés libres : Attachment, Climbing plants, GrowBots, Microspines, Robotics, Searcher stems, Sliding force, Static force

Agences de financement européennes : European Commission

Agences de financement hors UE : Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Programme de financement européen : H2020

Projets sur financement : (EU) Towards a new generation of plant-inspired growing artefacts, (FRA) CEnter of the study of Biodiversity in Amazonia

Auteurs et affiliations

• Lehnebach Romain, CIRAD-ES-UMR Ecofog (GUF) ORCID: 0000-0001-6175-4437 - auteur correspondant
• Paul-Victor Cloé, Université de Montpellier (FRA)
• Courric Elisa, Université de Montpellier (FRA)
• Rowe Nick P., Université de Montpellier (FRA)

Source : Cirad-Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/606171/)

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