Author: zooplantman
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Fig Wasps As Keystone Species, Vulnerable To Global Warming
From the wings of tiny creatures hang the fates of hundreds of bird and mammal species, and perhaps even entire rainforests. They are fig wasps and they play a disproportionate role in the grand drama of life on Earth. They shape our own story too because of this. But new research warns that these insects could be
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Plants Speak About Their Future. Audibly
We have identified that plants respond to sound and they make their own sounds
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How To Charm A Bee: Have Her Over For Coffee
Scientists have found that some plants, like the coffee plant (Coffea), use caffeine to manipulate the memory of bees. The nectar in their flowers holds low levels of caffeine that pollinators find highly rewarding.
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When Plantations Replace Rain Forest The Ants Lose
Cutting down rainforest to create oil-palm plantations causes canopy-dwelling ant populations to break up into mutually-exclusive territories with very little overlap, according to new research.
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Bees Scan Flower’s Electrical Field To Evaluate Nectar Value
Now, what we show is that when a bee visits a flower and we could measure that with electrodes that we implanted into flowers, the potential of the flower changes. And when a bee visits that potential changes and when the second bee comes along, and happens to land for instance, that potential changes even more. So, it would be in the interest of a bee to understand that perhaps that flower has been visited and is depleted from nectar.
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Inner World of Carnivorous Plants
Virtual Fly-Into Carnivorous Plants: You WILL be digested!
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Carnivorous Plants Employ Light Traps For Prey
Some carnivorous plants act as blue ‘fluorescent lamps’ to lure prey, according to scientists in India To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting such strong and distinct fluorescence emissions in the plant kingdom.
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Marsh Plants Create Their Own Marshes (not the other way round)
But this team found intertidal marsh plants in Italy's famed Venetian lagoon were able to subtly tune, or adjust, their elevations by producing different amounts of organic soil, and trapping and accumulating different amounts of inorganic sediments as part of a complex interplay with the environment.
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Flies Manipulate Fungus And In Doing So, Evolve
The flies are like pirates. They use the fungi as boats to float across a genomic sea and board a plant that is genetically far removed from what they would otherwise be able to feed on.
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Are You As Smart As A Chimpanzee?
As you will see in this post, there is no single anatomical recipe for creating the colorful, fleshy and/or juicy reward for a seed-dispersing herbivore, mortal or otherwise. Many of the myriad flower, fruit and seed structures are variously promoted to the role of what is colloquially thought of as