The Biosphere Blog

Below is the same photo of the young Ta-Jan mentioned back on 1st September 2020 in this post. The photo below was taken today, 15th September. This tree has not seen soil since July, as part of a little experiment to a) show how tough these trees are,… more »

Back Story These days it’s ‘just known’ that we/animals take in oxygen to survive (exhaling carbon dioxide as a waste product), while plants take in carbon dioxide to survive (releasing oxygen as a waste product). Yet right up into the… more »

We covered the three stages of dormancy here, wrapping up with a description of the internal changes during the last stage which prepare a tree for spring. These changes are invisible externally, but set in motion the changes that do become visible… more »

Energy Sources All living things need energy to fuel the biochemical pathways that enable them to grow, reproduce and move. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed or… more »

Ecodormancy is the third and last stage of dormancy. It is a ‘less dormant’ state in which a tree becomes more responsive to external environmental factors, but is prevented from growth because of response to those factors, such as the still… more »

Endodormancy is the second, and true stage of dormancy. During endodormancy the tree is in such a deep state of rest that it cannot respond to favourable environmental factors even if it wanted to. This probably protects it from responding to brief,… more »

Before Getting Started: This and the next two posts will be referring to genes and the proteins they code for. Writing the two can be confusing, as they often have the same name! This becomes even more confusing when the qualifying terms… more »

Last week we looked at the three stages of dormancy: induction, endodormancy, and ecodormancy. Some species enter dormancy when the number of daylight hours reduces, while others seem to respond to decreased temperatures. In contrast, most species… more »

Many temperate woody perennials, including the jujube tree, enter dormancy during winter so as to survive the very low temperatures and greatly reduced sunlight of that season. During this period all activity and other signs of life cease — leaves fall… more »

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, algae, cyanobacteria, and a few other bacterial species convert light energy into chemical energy, which is stored as a food source. Photosynthetic organisms thus produce their own food, and are called… more »