Natures wonders: fooled hornets spread seed (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 20:26 (764 days ago) @ David Turell

The tree produces a chemical lure:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-call-in-hornets-to-rescue-their-seeds/

"A hornet senses a chemical distress signal from an agarwood tree and zips over, hoping to devour a customary meal of attacking caterpillars. But when it arrives, there are no caterpillars, and it has to settle for agarwood seeds—which the duped insect carries away, unwittingly helping the tree reproduce. A new study in Current Biology says this is the first-known case of a plant deploying such defensive chemicals to spread its seeds.

"The agarwood species Aquilaria sinensis is native to tropical China. When caterpillars start eating its leaves, the leaves respond with a type of defense found in many plants: they release compounds called herbivore-induced plant volatiles, or HIPVs, to attract hungry predators. “Most plants have these [HIPVs],” says Jessamyn Manson, an ecologist at the University of Virginia, who was not involved with the new research.

"A hornet senses a chemical distress signal from an agarwood tree and zips over, hoping to devour a customary meal of attacking caterpillars. But when it arrives, there are no caterpillars, and it has to settle for agarwood seeds—which the duped insect carries away, unwittingly helping the tree reproduce. A new study in Current Biology says this is the first-known case of a plant deploying such defensive chemicals to spread its seeds.

"The agarwood species Aquilaria sinensis is native to tropical China. When caterpillars start eating its leaves, the leaves respond with a type of defense found in many plants: they release compounds called herbivore-induced plant volatiles, or HIPVs, to attract hungry predators. “Most plants have these [HIPVs],” says Jessamyn Manson, an ecologist at the University of Virginia, who was not involved with the new research.

"In the study, researchers used chemical analyses and field experiments to demonstrate that agarwood fruit can also produce compounds found in HIPVs—even in the absence of a caterpillar assault. This quickly draws various types of hornets, which feed on fleshy, nutrient-rich blobs called elaiosomes attached to the seeds. The hornets tend to discard the seeds near their nests—shaded areas where they can germinate without drying out. In direct sunlight, the seeds die within hours.

"The study illuminates an infrequently studied phenomenon. “Rapid seed dispersal is overlooked,” says study co-author Gang Wang, an ecologist at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Seed dispersal by hornets is particularly mysterious. Although ants—hornets' relatives—are estimated to spread seeds for more than 11,000 plants, the study notes, documented cases of hornets themselves doing so are rare.

Comment: Any form of mimicry raises the question of how did it happen? How do butterflies
make eye spots appear in their evolution. How does this tree know how to make a complex plant protein? Perhaps God helped by design.