Sunday, March 23, 2014

Battle Plants


Evidence found by researchers in New Phytologist has shown that a species of Milkweed found in tropical climates has developed horns on it's pollinia sacs to stop other parent plants from being pollinated. In lees complicated terms, this means that plants are developing weapons to battle other plants.

I found a few other websites and found some more information on the subject. The plants develop these horns to ward off intrasexual competition. 

I chose to write about this topic because of how cool it sounded. I am a big fan of action, and plants getting a piece of it is even better. This sounds so awesome and almost like a capitalistic idea of competition.

NOS Themes:

Role of Credibility: The project was lead by  Dr. Andrea Cocucci from the Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal of Argentina. 

Science is based on evidence: They found the horns on male seeds that need to be spread, and know that males have to compete for a mate.

1 comment:

  1. This is incredibly interesting, and I agree with you about the "action." I had no idea any plants had parts meant for warding off other plants. You did very well in explaining what the milkweed plants uses it's horns for. I am looking forward to reading the website you posted!

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