Saturday, February 1, 2020

Deciphering the Weird, Wonderful Genetic Diversity of Leaf Shapes

Although we know that plants come in different shapes, colors, and sizes, it’s always amazing to find out why.

via Smithsonian

Many plant scientists see leaves as being broken up into two domains—the upper leaf, or adaxial, and the lower leaf, or abaxial—and have looked at this separation as the key to producing a wide variety of leaf forms. The two regions have different physical properties and are also marked by variations in gene expression. Even though the genetic makeup might be the same across these regions, their expression (whether they’re turned “on” or “off”) differs.

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