Category: Plants & Animals
-
Tropical Seed Dispersers Are Less Picky
Scientists have now analysed the “Who with whom?” in a worldwide study and have discovered that the specialization of pollinators and seed disperses on individual plant species decreases towards the equator.
-
If They Drink Lots Of Plant Sap It Has To Go Somewhere (Cover Your Eyes!)
No animal, it seemed, was capable of tapping into this nutritious but elusive resource – imagine trying catching beer cans flying with the speed of 60 miles/hour.
-
When Insects Attack, Plants Call For Help
Gravid butterflies were repelled by volatiles from plants induced by cabbage white butterfly eggs, probably as a means of avoiding competition, whereas both parasitic wasp species were attracted.
-
Thank Ants for South African Floral Diversity
Ants helped create a biodiversity hotspot in the Cape region of South Africa, scientists believe.
-
With Mastodons Extinct, Seed Thieves Become Seed Dispersers
Thieving rodents helped the black palm tree survive by taking over the seed-spreading role of the mighty mastodon and other extinct elephant-like creatures that are thought to have eaten these large seeds.
-
Gross Seed Dispersal: Plant Makes Mice Vomit
A desert mouse has found a seed. It bites into it, and gets a pungent mouthful of mustard. Reeling from the chemical party in its mouth, its spits out the seed and unwittingly helps the seed‘s producer – a Israeli desert plant called Ochradenus baccatus. By using chemical weapons, it converts rodents into an unwitting vehicles for its seeds.
-
Insects Use Plants To Leave Messages For Each Other
Insects can use plants as ‘green phones‘ for communication with other bugs. A new study now shows that through those same plants insects are also able to leave ‘voicemail‘ messages in the soil.
-
Flowers Offer Velcro Cells To Aid Foraging Bees
It's is too easy to look at flowers from a human perspective, but when you put yourself into the bee's shoes you find hidden features of flowers can be crucial to foraging success.
-
How Manta Rays In The Ocean Depend On Terrestrial Forests
A new study from a Pacific atoll reveals the links between native trees, bird guano, and the giant manta rays that live off the coast. In unraveling this intricate web, the researchers point to the often little-understood interconnectedness between terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
-
Unusual Partnership: Insectivorous Plant Enlists Assistance Of Insect
Plants are insectivorous in situations where substrate acidity deprives them of nitrogen. To recruit some of the insect prey to help the feeding seems almost animal in its cunning. Only one of the 120 species of the Nepenthes genus has been found so far to use a single plant-ant species within its tissues to help out.