Question

How would shoot and root growth be affected by a mutation that caused plants to lose the ability to polymerize glucose into starch granules? Select all that apply.
a) Lateral branch shoots would grow more upright and be less able to maintain a horizontal orientation.
b) Lateral branch shoots would grow more horizontally and have less of a tendency to turn upward. c) Only shoots would be affected.
d) Lateral branch roots fully embedded in soil would grow randomly upward and downward.
e) Roots breaking the soil surface would grow upward.

Answer 1

Answer:

b) Lateral branch shoots would grow more horizontally and have less of a tendency to turn upward.

d) Lateral branch roots fully embedded in soil would grow randomly upward and downward.

e) Roots breaking the soil surface would grow upward.

Explanation:

Inside the amyloplasts of the common bean the starch granules resemble variously sized cotton balls stuffed into a balloon. Under normal circumstances amyloplasts do nothing more than sit on the bottom of special gravity-sensing cells. When a plant is knocked over, the amyloplasts slide from what was recently the bottom of the cell onto a formerly vertical wall. Somehow, this movement is sensed and relayed to cells that secrete the growth-regulating plant hormone auxin.

Since the plant has lost the ability to transform glucose into the granules. The plant can´t differentiate between up or down because gravity is what causes these granules to settle down.