Kia Pākiki Canterbury – Samarth, plant molecular biologist
Dr Samarth is a plant molecular biologist working at Canterbury University. He spoke about his work on the podcast Kia Pākiki Canterbury, telling the hosts, Science Communicator Tom Goulter and Associate Professor Adrian Paterson, how he got interested in the field.
Kia Pākiki Canterbury – plant molecular biology
In this Kia Pākiki Canterbury podcast, Science Communicator Tom Goulter and Associate Professor Adrian Paterson from Lincoln University interview Dr Samarth from Canterbury University.
Select here to view video transcript and copyright information
Origin of a plant molecular biologist
“This is what exactly happened,” says Samarth about how he got started in the field, “and I’m not kidding about this. In 2013 … I was supposed to do a master’s in biopharmaceuticals and proteins. So that was my main interest. But what happened was I went on a pilgrimage with my parents and my family, and there was a flash flood in the mountains, and we got stuck there. We were stuck in the mountain, in cold air in the Himalayas at 14,000 feet with no shelter, no food, nothing. And we had to just survive on what we could find around each other. And that sort of sparked my interest and curiosity, how well the plants supported us and how much important they are for us.”
This provoked in Samarth a curiosity about plant physiology, he says, which led to him doing his master’s in plant biotechnology. “That really piqued my interest,” he says, “and I just was completely hooked onto plants from there on.” He proceeded to research into plant metabolisms, the computational side of biology, genomes and DNA, and then molecular biology. “That’s how it all started,” says Samarth.
Mountain beech tree
Tawhai rauriki, the mountain beech tree (Fuscospora cliffortioides).
Hidden abilities of plants
That experience was the start of a journey to unlock the secrets of plants. “It’s been long that we all have believed that plants are quite passive organisms and they are quite unaware,” explains Samarth. “But through my research, we are trying to show how much they can perceive environmental signals. In particular, I’m looking at how they can hear different sound vibrations.” He’s then interested in how plants convert those signals into biomolecular signatures and biological processes.
“Moreover, I’m looking at how plants or trees can detect the summer solstice and initiate their reproductive or developmental transitions, which is interesting seeing that such a small change in a day length could initiate something really important for those trees.”
Samarth explains the main goal of his research as looking into “understanding how plants interact with the environment through sound vibrations”. As a molecular biologist, he’s seeking to understand these interactions on a biomolecular level such as at the level of proteins or DNA.
“My main goal is to use acoustic energy, or sound frequency of specific wavelength, and use them to actually either promote or repress protein concentrations inside the cell,” explains Samarth, adding that this would allow a lot of industrial applications for agriculture.
“We would be able to just apply sound waves which can allow the plants to promote their defence mechanisms,” says Samarth. “We don’t have to put any pesticides, we don’t have to put any herbicides. We don’t have to treat them with anything.” Everything, in Samarth’s ideal scenario, could happen on the level of acoustic energy.
Chatham Islands sow thistle
The Chatham Islands sow thistle presents a conservation dilemma – while it is endangered, it is also the only host plant for the endangered fungi Puccinia embergeriae, which kills it.
Plants’ sense of sound
Some people like to play classical music to plants or talk to them out of a belief that this may help them grow healthier and stronger. Samarth says that the basis of his research operates on the same principle. “Plants respond to sounds, and they have different frequencies that they are responding to,” he explains. “Scientifically, people have shown plants respond to from 50 hertz to 5 kilohertz. Some sounds help them grow, some sounds act as sort of a deterrent in growing.” Different crops and plants respond to different sound frequencies, says Samarth. “But the ultimate challenge … is how are they actually detecting it and how are they responding to it? We really don’t know yet.” Samarth was recently awarded a Marsden Fast-Start grant to look at whether trichomes – small protrusions on the leaf surface – can act as mechanoreceptors to absorb the pressure waves that make up sound and translate that physical signal into a biochemical cue.
Trichomes
Trichomes on the surface of a garden huckleberry (Solanum scabrum) leaf. Trichomes are hair-like epidermal outgrowths found on a plant’s surface. They play critical roles in plants’ survival and may allow plants to absorb and react to sound waves.
There are various reasons why perception of sound might put plants at an evolutionary advantage. For example, he says, one recent paper showed that garden pea roots actually use sound to find out where the water is, and they move towards where the water source is.
Plants have also been shown to respond to the sound of caterpillars chewing by releasing metabolites to make them more resistant to herbivores. Samarth also points out a study showing that, if you expose them to pollinator sound, they produced more sugar or more nectar in the flowers, which promotes pollinator attractions and increasing pollination efficiency.
Samarth’s research suggests that plants also generate sound, producing ultrasonic waves to communicate what stresses the plants may be about to encounter. If it’s a drought stress, they would have different sounds, says Samarth, and if they’re likely to encounter cuts to the plant or predation by a herbivore, the research is indicating, they release different sounds again.
This means plants can use sound to help each other defend against both biotic stress (damage caused by other living organisms) and abiotic stress (damage caused by non-living factors in the environment).
Developing climate-resilient plants
Research like Samarth’s contributes to sustainable agriculture. “If we do understand how plants are interacting with the environment,” he says, we can develop novel ways of making plants “less susceptible to diseases, make them more resilient towards abiotic stresses with climate warming coming into the picture.”
With climate change resulting in higher winter temperatures, which affects reproduction and flowering, “knowing how plants interact with their environment would help us … fine-tune those molecular processes happening behind those biological processes, and we can help our farmers to develop varieties which can withstand those climate changes”.
Related content
Plantain – all about one pasture crop farmers are using to increase climate resilience.
Plant reproduction without seeds – explore the various ways plants have of reproducing and growing.
Plants and whakapapa – an ao Māori perspective on our relationship to plants.
Useful link
Building climate-resilient pasture systems in New Zealand – a resource about increasing climate resilience in Aotearoa New Zealand farmland.
Acknowledgement
This interview was excerpted from an episode of Kia Pākiki Canterbury, a monthly podcast about science, technology and humanities presented by the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
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Kia Pākiki Canterbury is a monthly podcast about science, technology and the humanities presented by the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
