Plants: Dominant species?

Overheal

Did anyone catch this? It was on The Science Channel stateside so ill guess no, but it was called Revenge of the Plants.

Anyway theres a lot of research being done into plants. Scientists are beginning to hypothesize about the Intelligence of plants through 'tropic behavior and their evolution. Most plants also have twice as many genes as a human. By conventional thinking, that would make them highly more evolved than us.

http://io9.com/363347/plants-rapidly-evolve-new-reproductive-systems-in-cities

Im also growing a venus flytrap at home. probably over-evolved: it lives naturally in just 100sqm area of the planet, in the carolinas. but its exceptional at what it does. Growing traps that only close when triggered; then only "swallowing" when it detects struggled inside over the course of a couple hours. In a brush fire, or even if it loses all of its leaves due to drought (i forgot to water it for a month) it will still begin to grow back after losing over 95% of its mass in only a week or two.

Theres other plants that have sleep cycles; some plants that will go limp if they're touched, and plants that will evolve thorns and toxins if introduced to new predators. Acacias in asia (or africa idk) evolved toxins to poison the local grazing population with - i think they were deer or antelope. amazing stuff.

with all that you have to wonder: if we evolved first, would plants take in oxygen and give out CO2? Would photosynthesis work on completely unique principles? As our carbon gas emmissions rise will plants be able to adapt in time? Or will they stop delivering oxygen just to spite us and take back whats theirs?

I want salad.

Overheal

http://gizmodo.com/5382899/remainders-+-things-we-didnt-post/gallery/3

Research has shown that mustard plants actually favor members of their own family (plants also descending from the same mother, at least) by sharing nutrients and not competing for sunlight. That's adorable, isn't it? Maybe I'll buy a mustard plant next

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/plant-siblings/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqsID9PFDS4

As seedlings grow, their developing root system gives off a variety of chemical signals, and the researchers guessed that these secretions might play a role in sibling recognition. To test their theory, the scientists grew wild Arabidopsis thaliana in a sterile liquid containing root extracts from sibling plants, unrelated plants or their own roots. Because each plant was grown in a highly controlled setup, the researchers could be sure any changes in growth were due to differences in the root extracts.

As shown in the time-lapse videos below, the seedlings exposed to root secretions from unrelated plants grew significantly longer and more elaborate root systems than those grown in secretions from their siblings. The top video shows unrelated plants, while the bottom one shows siblings.


Wired Science News for Your Neurons
Plants Know Their Relatives — And Like Them!

* By Hadley Leggett Email Author
* October 14, 2009 |
* 6:01 pm |
* Categories: Agriculture, Biology
*

arabidopsis

Unlike many human brothers and sisters, plant siblings appear to do their best to get along, sharing resources and avoiding competition.

In a study of more than 3,000 mustard seedlings, scientists discovered that the young plants recognize their siblings — other plants grown from the seeds of the same momma plant — using chemical cues given off during root growth. And it turns out mustard plants won’t compete with their brethren the way they will with strangers: Instead of rapidly growing roots to suck up as much water and minerals as possible, plants who sensed nearby siblings developed a shallower root system and more intertwined leaves.

“It’s possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy,” plant biologist Harsh Bais of the University of Delaware said in a press release. The work will be published in an upcoming issue of Communicative and Integrative Biology.

Two years ago, co-author Susan Dudley of McMaster University in Canada observed a similar pattern in the sea rocket, a common seashore plant that also appears to favor its siblings. But the initial studies of kin recognition have been criticized for failing to control for complicating factors, such as resource depletion caused by competition between the unrelated plants. And until now, the researchers didn’t know how plants managed to identify their kin.

As seedlings grow, their developing root system gives off a variety of chemical signals, and the researchers guessed that these secretions might play a role in sibling recognition. To test their theory, the scientists grew wild Arabidopsis thaliana in a sterile liquid containing root extracts from sibling plants, unrelated plants or their own roots. Because each plant was grown in a highly controlled setup, the researchers could be sure any changes in growth were due to differences in the root extracts.

As shown in the time-lapse videos below, the seedlings exposed to root secretions from unrelated plants grew significantly longer and more elaborate root systems than those grown in secretions from their siblings. The top video shows unrelated plants, while the bottom one shows siblings.

However, when the scientists blocked root secretions using a chemical called sodium orthovanadate, the differences disappeared, suggesting that the sibling identification system indeed depends on chemicals released by growing roots.

wudangclan

Overheal wrote: »

Theres other plants that have sleep cycles; some plants that will go limp if they're touched, and plants that will evolve thorns and toxins if introduced to new predators. Acacias in asia (or africa idk) evolved toxins to poison the local grazing population with - i think they were deer or antelope. amazing stuff.

what amazes me about some of these plants is that if one is eaten by an animal the trees surrounding it will increase their tannin levels thereby making themselves unpalatable to the grazing animals.so it would appear that they are either way ahead of us in terms of telepathic communication or it's proof of non-causal correlation in quantum mechanics.

Leprachaun

After watching the happening I never looked at plants the same way.

Prof.Badass

Overheal wrote: »

Anyway theres a lot of research being done into plants. Scientists are beginning to hypothesize about the Intelligence of plants through 'tropic behavior and their evolution. Most plants also have twice as many genes as a human. By conventional thinking, that would make them highly more evolved than us.

I think people should avoid decribing things as "more evolved" or "less evolved". Having more or less genes does not make you more or less evolved. Jack jumper ants only have one pair of chromosones (males only have 1 chromosone). Does this make them less evolved than a bacteria with more than one pair of chromosones?
I would see losing most of your chromosones as a massive evolutionary undertaking.

with all that you have to wonder: if we evolved first, would plants take in oxygen and give out CO2?

When life began the atmosphere only had trace amounts of oxygen. A lot of organisms such as purple sulfur bacteria used sulfur instead of oxygen. When cyanobacteria evolved oxygen-based photosynthesis, the oxygen they released was actually poisinous to most of the organisms at the time. It took hundreds of millions of years of photosynthesis by cyanobacteria to create an atmosphere simmilar to the one we have today.

It was the new oxygenated atmosphere that allowed animals that consume oxygen to evolve. I can't really find any useful information besides wikipedia, which is annoying because i remember watching a documentary that explained it all really well and i find the evolution of photosynthesis/respiration and what came before them quite fascinating.

Anyway, to answer your question , organisms that really on atmospheric oxygen just couldn't have evolved unless oxygen releasing organisms had evolved first.

maninasia

wudangclan wrote: »

what amazes me about some of these plants is that if one is eaten by an animal the trees surrounding it will increase their tannin levels thereby making themselves unpalatable to the grazing animals.so it would appear that they are either way ahead of us in terms of telepathic communication or it's proof of non-causal correlation in quantum mechanics.

They probably release a chemical transmitter into the air where it is sensed by surrounding plants.

Overheal

maninasia wrote: »

They probably release a chemical transmitter into the air where it is sensed by surrounding plants.

I could see how plants would emit vapor as their leaves were destroyed.

Also, animal feces in the soil would be a direct way of plants being able to tell whats grazing in their environment and potential ways to combat the animal: even if its using most or all of the substances in the feces - which the animal has already excreted as waste and probably contains a few substances which are toxic to the animal.