THELDRAKE X AUXIN

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Here’s a bullet-gist summary of the forwarded email/preview titled “How Life Comes From Death — The Evolution of Auxin” by Rupert Sheldrake:

Bullet Gist — How Life Comes From Death: The Evolution of Auxin (Rupert Sheldrake)

• The piece discusses how the plant hormone auxin may be produced largely by dying cells, rather than only by living growing tissues. (Rupert Sheldrake – Author and Biologist)

• Auxin (specifically indole-3-acetic acid, IAA) is a key plant growth hormone involved in development, cell differentiation, and response to environment. (Wikipedia)

• Traditional views hold auxin is synthesized in young shoots, leaves, flowers, and roots;
  Sheldrake reviews an alternative “dying-cell hypothesis.” (OUP Academic)

• According to this hypothesis, as cells die and break down (autolyse), tryptophan is released and converted into auxin. (Rupert Sheldrake – Author and Biologist)

• Many major plant sites of auxin production coincide with cell death processes, like differentiating xylem, senescing leaves, root cap sloughing, wounds, and seed/flower tissue breakdown. (Rupert Sheldrake – Author and Biologist)

• Auxin may originally have evolved as an environmental signal—indicating rich decomposing organic matter for opportunistic growth such as rhizoids in primitive plants. (Rupert Sheldrake – Author and Biologist)

• As plants evolved, sensitivity to auxin became internalised and IAA took on its modern hormonal role controlling growth and development. (Rupert Sheldrake – Author and Biologist)

• Sheldrake’s work challenges conventional assumptions about biosynthesis sites and evolutionary origins of auxin. (OUP Academic)

Let me know if you want a TL;DR in one sentence, a visual mind map, or study notes on this!