Biology of the Pineapple Plant

Abstract

The pineapple (Ananas comosus) is a tropical plant with an edible multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries, which originated from the area between southern Brazil and Paraguay. Taxonomically, pineapple belongs to family Bromeliaceae, subfamily Bromelioideae, order Bromeliales, genus Ananas, and species comosus. It is grown worldwide and has become the second most important fruit around the world. For this reason, pineapple is regarded as the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is herbaceous plant made up of root, stem, and leaves and gives rise to flower, fruit, and seed when mature. The plant has a spiral morphology due to the arrangement of the leaves, inflorescence, and fruit. In the field, the adult pineapple grows several suckers and slips. Because the commercial cultivated pineapple rarely produces seeds, the suckers and slips, together with crown, are widely used for pineapple propagation in agriculture. The pineapple plant has evolved to CAM photosynthetic pathway, which ensures its great adaptation to dry and high-temperature environment. At night, the pineapple stomata open to absorb the carbon dioxide and fix the carbon dioxide within the plant as the form of malic acid for later use; this allows them to keep their stomata closed during the day but does not interrupt the photosynthesis. Pineapple plant conducts photosynthesis and respiration stimulatingly during the day and the night. The CO₂ and O₂, as products of one biological process and substrates of the other, could be internally exchanged for reusing. CO₂ uptake is the most important for photosynthesis. In pineapple, light, temperature, and environmental CO₂ concentration have impacts on the CO₂ assimilation and thus affect the efficiency of photosynthesis.