• Question: If you put water on plants the vacuole gets bigger and it squash a little bit the cell wall to keep its shape, if you don't give them water they curve because it is not enough filled up the vacuole and then WHY does a plant if you give them excess of water die?(🙏🏼please explain in lots of detail🙏🏼)

    Asked by MarcS to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 7 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Oh this one is definitely not for me!!! I’m having flashbacks to biology in school! You’ll need another scientist to help with this one (and maybe I’ll learn about it too)

    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Oh my goodness, absolutely not my area of expertise either! I can kill a plant just by looking at it! I did a little google because actually I think it is a really interesting question and I would quite like to know the answer!

      I found this webpage – read the comment by Dan Metcalfe, I think that explains it well http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=8387

      Also read the link given about cacti – I think that might also help explain a little more!

      Hope that helps! Out of interest is this for an assignment or are you just trying to be more green fingered?

    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      As an animal behaviour expert my knowledge of plants is pretty limited. I know that birds perch in trees, but…
      One thing I do know: the process you describe in part explains how plants an lean towards the light and follow the sun during the day. This is called photo-taxis. Watch buttercups in a field: in the morning they point to the sun in one direction and in the afternoon they’ll still point at the sun but in a different direction. Clever!

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 12 Mar 2017:

      I’m a bit unsure to be honest but it has to do with the osmotic potential of the cells. Cells try to maintain the balance between amount of water and salts inside and outside the cells, so if you had a lot of water, the cell, which has more salts, will take up more water to balance out the salts. However, I think it also has to do with the fact that stagnated water quickly becomes depleted of oxygen (runs out of it) and so the roots become anoxic (no oxygen). In the long term this becomes a problem to most plants. An exception are mangrove trees that have evolved side roots that stick up so they are not underwater all the time. Have a look at them here:

      https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mangroves+trees&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxrtmy_9DSAhXJAsAKHfr3DPkQ_AUIBigB&biw=1254&bih=630

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      Nice question! Overwater of plants might result in the lack of Oxygen at the roots area. Here’s a great video that explains it well:

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