Physics of rapid movements in plants

Yoel Forterre (1) , Philippe Marmottant (2) , Catherine Quilliet (2) , Xavier Noblin (3)

1 IUSTI - Institut universitaire des systèmes thermiques industriels
2 LIPhy - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique [Saint Martin d’Hères]
3 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée

Plants move, and not only under the action of the wind or during growth. Although they lack muscle, some have developed mechanisms to generate surprisingly fast movements, with speeds (about 10 m/s) and accelerations (thousands of g) that compete and even surpass those encountered in the animal kingdom.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Yoel Forterre, Philippe Marmottant, Catherine Quilliet, Xavier Noblin. Physics of rapid movements in plants. Europhysics News, 2016, 47, pp.27 - 30. ⟨10.1051/epn/2016104⟩. ⟨hal-01431986⟩