ELi5: Can plants be “overweight” if they produce too much food in the similar fashion to how animals gain weight if they eat too much food?

Question

When animals eat too much food, they gain weight. What happens to a plant that produces too much food via photosynthesis? Can plants be overweight?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Not similar. Most plants don’t create storage for excess energy based on just nutrient consumption. They are efficient in that all nutrients taken up will be put toward growth or fruit. The exception would be biennials perrenials, though their energy storage mechanisms are usually subject to environmental cues rather than just nutrient uptake. Onions will bulb out based on the amount of daylight they receive, and will then use the bulb as an energy store over winter. Most of your flower bulbs behave similarly. Trees will create large stores of sugar as daylight hours shorten and the weather cools. This not only feeds the tree, but the sugar and some proteins act as a sort of antifreeze to keep its cells from rupturing due to ice formation.