Experiment On Circadian Rhythms in Plants
In 1729, de Mairan performed an experiment that demonstrated the existence of circadian rhythms in plants, specifically the Mimosa pudica. He was intrigued by the daily opening and closing of the heliotrope plant and performed a simple experiment where he exposed the plants to constant darkness and recorded the behavior. De Mairan's key conclusion was that the daily rhythmic opening and closing of the leaves persisted even in the absence of sunlight. However, de Mairan hesitated to conclude that heliotropes have internal clocks and hypothesized that other factors, such as temperature and magnetic fields, were responsible for the rhythmic behavior. He did not publish his results because he doubted his findings and the importance of their implications.
These results may have gone unnoticed had his colleague, Marchant, not published them for de Mairan. The published accounts of de Mairan's work stimulated further research in the field of chronobiology.
A video showing circadian rhythms in a cucumber plant in constant conditions, similar to what de Mairan observed, can be seen here.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Jacques D'Ortous De Mairan
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