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Gravity: one of the driving forces for evolution

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Summary.

Mechanical load is 103 larger for land-living than for water-living organisms. As a consequence, antigravitational material in form of compound materials like lignified cell walls in plants and mineralised bones in animals occurs in land-living organisms preferentially. Besides cellulose, pectic substances of plant cell walls seem to function as antigravitational material in early phases of plant evolution and development. A testable hypothesis including vesicular recycling processes into the tensegrity concept is proposed for both sensing of gravitational force and responding by production of antigravitational material at the cellular level.

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  1. Institut für Zelluläre und Molekulare Botanik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn

    D. Volkmann & F. Baluška

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  1. D. Volkmann
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  2. F. Baluška
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Correspondence to D. Volkmann.

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Correspondence and reprints: Institut für Zelluläre und Molekulare Botanik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Kirschallee 1, 53115 Bonn, Germany.

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Volkmann, D., Baluška, F. Gravity: one of the driving forces for evolution. Protoplasma 229, 143–148 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-006-0200-4

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