Circumnutation as an autonomous root movement in plants

Although publications on circumnutation of the aerial parts of flowering plants are numerous and primarily from the time between Darwin (1880) and the 1950s, reports on circumnutation of roots are scarce. With the introduction of modern molecular biology techniques, many topics in the plant sciences have been revitalized; among these is root circumnutation. The most important research in this area has been done on Arabidopsis thaliana, which has roots that behave differently from those of many other plants; roots grown on inclined agar dishes produce a pattern of half waves slanted to one side. When grown instead on horizontally set dishes, the roots grow in loops or in tight right-handed coils that are characterized by a tight torsion to the left-hand. The roots of the few plants that differ from Arabidopsis and have been similarly tested do not present such patterns, because even if they circumnutate generally in a helical pattern, they subsequently straighten. Research on plants in space or on a clinostat has allowed the testing of these roots in a habitat lacking gravity or simulating the lack. Recently, molecular geneticists have started to connect various root behaviors to specific groups of genes. For example, anomalies in auxin responses caused by some genes can be overcome by complementation with wild-type genes. Such important studies contribute to understanding the mechanisms of growth and elongation, processes that are only superficially understood.