Plants use maths to regulate food reserves

The ability to do math is not unique to humans and plants seem to have a built-in capacity to do maths, which helps them regulate food reserves at night, according to research.

Professors Martin Howard and Alison Smith

According to UK scientists, they were "amazed" to find an example of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation in biology.

A John Innes Centre team reported in e-Life journal that mathematical models showed that the amount of starch consumed overnight was calculated by division through a process involving leaf chemicals. According to mathematical models the amount of starch consumed overnight was calculated by division in a process involving leaf chemicals.

Similar methods might be used by birds to preserve fat levels during migration.

The scientists studied the plant Arabidopsis, which is regarded as a model plant for experiments.

Overnight, when it was not possible for the plant to use energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and starch, it needed to regulate starch  reserves to ensure they lasted until dawn.

From experiments by scientists at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, scientists showed that to adjust its starch consumption so precisely, the plant must be performing a mathematical calculation - arithmetic division.

This comes as the first concrete example in biology of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation.

To keep themselves going the plants performed division equations throughout the night to ration their stores of starch until the moment the sun reappeared.

They keep track of the amount of starch and divide it by the number of hours left until morning to ensure they did not run out until the crack of dawn. They could even adjust their calculations during the night.

According to scientists, the discovery was the first known example in nature of sophisticated arithmetic being done at a fundamental level, as opposed to in the brain cells of animals like humans.

It played a crucial role in plants' survival as they were dependent on starch, which was produced from carbon dioxide and sunlight during the day, to provide energy during the night.

If plants were to find themselves without starch during the hours of darkness, starvation would quickly set in, growth would stop and it might even take several hours to recover even after light returned.

According to professor Alison Smith, a metabolic biologist who helped make the discovery, the capacity to perform arithmetic calculation was vital for plant growth and productivity.