Plants send for help when attacked
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Imagine you are a green leafy plant, growing and thriving, then all of sudden, a caterpillar starts munching on your maturing leaves. Must get help quick in order to survive, “Mayday, Mayday” don’t worry help is on the way.
Leafy tobacco plants have evolved a “chemical SOS” that attracts predatory insects that eat the attackers.
In the journal Science, researchers revealed that the caterpillars’ saliva activates this signal.
The modified signal causes Geocoris insects, which feed on the caterpillar larvae and eggs, to swoop in – rescuing the plant and gaining a meal.
The work was carried out by Silke Allmann of the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Ian Baldwin of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany.
They discovered that when the plants were attacked by tobacco hornworm caterpillars, Manduca sexta, the caterpillar saliva caused a chemical change in “green leaf volatiles” – pungent chemicals that the plants produce. The familiar smell of cut grass is generated by green leaf volatiles (GLVs). Science and Environment here.
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There’s a movie called ‘The Happening’…it’s on SKY at the moment. Matt Damon I think. About plants doing exactly that against humans. I don’t think it did well at the box office but I well enjoyed it.
Nature ‘topping’ humans by the thousands via plant excretions…
That is amazing! I bet there is so much attack/counter attack stuff going on in the plant and insect world that has yet to be discovered.
I remember reading about this worm that infests crickets that can actually take over the cricket’s brain, forcing the cricket to find the nearest body of water and jump in so the worm can complete it’s growth cycle. The cricket becomes a zombie until it commits suicide!
I agree with Gwen. Fascinating read.
Fascinating.
Have you looked up the ‘phantom limb’ phenomenon plants display?