Sugar Helps Plants Tell the Time

Plants use sugar to tell the time of the day, according to a new study. They, like animals, have a 24-hour body clock.

The study, conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge found that plants use sugars to tell them the time of the day. The biological timepiece gives the plants an inner ability to measure time even in the absence of light. This innate ability to match with time gives them a crucial competitive advantage, helping them manage biological processes including flowering, fragrance emission and leaf movement.

Scientists working on this study focused on how plants manage to maintain and function according to the inner clock. They discovered that the secret lied in sugars that plants produce via photosynthesis.

Dr Alex Webb, lead researcher at the University of Cambridge, explains, "Our research shows that sugar levels within a plant play a vital role in synchronizing circadian rhythms with its surrounding environment. Inhibiting photosynthesis, for example, slowed the plants internal clock by between 2 and 3 hours."

They noticed that the sugars played a key role in maintaining circadian rhythm. By monitoring the seedling in a carbon dioxide free atmosphere, to inhibit photosynthesis, the researchers studied the effect of sugar.  They also used genetically altered plants and monitoring their biology to understand the mechanism.

Researchers noticed that the sugar produced by plants control the important genes that are in charge for the 24-hour rhythm.

Dr Mike Haydon, University of York, concluded saying, "The accumulation of sugar within the plant provides a kind of feedback for the circadian cycle in plants -- a bit like resetting a stopwatch. We think this might be a way of telling the plant that energy in the form of sugars is available to perform important metabolic tasks. This mirrors research that has previously shown that feeding times can influence the phase of peripheral clocks in animals."

The study was published in the journal Nature.