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What most surprised me in this interview is, not only do plants increase sugar for 'efficient' pollinators, but: >In contrast they respond to the sound of nect
by marojejian 1y ago
What most surprised me in this interview is, not only do plants increase sugar for 'efficient' pollinators, but:
>In contrast they respond to the sound of nectar-stealing non-pollinators by cutting back on sugar.
So there is some discrimination in their hearing.
- xhkkffbf 1y agoWhat is an example of a nectar-stealing non-pollinator? Doesn't anything rooting around in there end up moving around some pollen?
- creaturemachine 1y agoI'd guess hummingbirds.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gus_massa 1y agoNo, hummingbirds also pollinate some plants. Random link from a Google search: https://www.nps.gov/articles/hummingbirds.htm#:~:text=Hummingbirds%20drink%20up%20to%20two,of%20color%20to%20our%20landscapes. https://www.nps.gov/articles/hummingbirds.htm#:~:text=Hummin...
- IAmBroom 1y agoSome is not all, and hummingbirds may well steal nectar from less tubular flowers.
- nemo 1y agoSome plants actually have evolved to be pollinated by hummingbirds, they have long thin tube shaped flowers that a hummingbird beak can travel up. The Sword-billed hummingbird has an incredibly long beak due to mutual evolution with flowers that grew deep tubes.
- Aloisius 1y agoSome carpenter bees will bite straight through the flower bypassing the stamens and stigma. Sometimes it's just an anatomy mismatch - like very small bee species and big open flowers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar_robbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar_robbing
- nemo 1y agoTake a look at the Flowerpiercers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowerpiercer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowerpiercer They're true parasites, piercing the flower to drink nectar without any chance of pollination.
- HelloMcFly 1y agoThe most common example are ants. Moths are often guilty of this as well.
- jbotz 1y agoPlants are our cousin eucaryotes, and they've been evolving as long as we animals have and so there is likely to be equivalent information processing complexity to be found in them, we just don't know how to recognize it because it's so different from animal intelligence. There might even be something comparable to animal consciousness, not at the level of an individual plant, but more collectively, even including multiple species, whole ecosystems of plants and fungi together having an awareness and intelligence that can not only rival ours, but even transcend it, having lifespans in the thousands of years.
- jmcgough 1y agoAnother possibility is that this is a non-conscious trait. Luring pollinators is an evolutionary advantage, but there is survival cost to giving nectar indiscriminately, so natural selection will favor plants that can mechanically differentiate between the two.
- Jabrov 1y ago"... so there is likely to be equivalent information processing complexity to be found in them" This sounds like a really wild take. Just because something has been evolving for millions of years doesn't necessarily mean it's evolving information processing capabilities. It's patently obvious to me that the information processing capabilities of animals (eg. just vision alone) are far beyond those of plants.
- deadbabe 1y agoThis would make things quite complicated for vegans.
- nkrisc 1y ago> Plants are our cousin eucaryotes, and they've been evolving as long as we animals have That is true. And look how different we’ve become. > and so there is likely to be equivalent information processing complexity to be found in them That’s quite a leap. I think precisely because plants and animals have evolved separately for so you can’t make that assumption. Maybe plants hasn’t not simply because they don’t need to, as a fundamental consequence of their differing physiology.