How and why is a clinostat used for investigating tropisms?
My advice would be:- • Find out about tropisms. What stimuli do plants respond to in a tropic manner. (A tropic response is where the direction of the response is related to the direction of the stimulus.) • Find out what a clinostat is. A clinostat can often be used to eliminate the effect of the stimuli which plants respond to. By rotating, the direction of the stimulus is continually being changed and therefore cancelling out the effect of the stimulus. • Try to think of experiments which would demonstrate a particular tropism. Your reading will suggest to you the particular plant parts which will be best to experiment with. Remember that you will also need to conduct a control experiment in which the stimulus is absent – this is where a clinostat will come in.
