Dr. Marilyn Quimado, the lead scientist on the research team, has found a new species of plant in the Philippines. They discovered it on the western parts of the Luzon Islands, which is notable for the abundance of heavy metals in the soil.
This is not any ordinary plant; it has a rare case of nickel hyper-accumulation. Only .5-1% of plants living in a metal rich soil have this ability. But what is nickel hyper-accumulation? It is a interesting case where plants can ingest nickel without being poisoned. In fact, eat up to 18,000 ppm of nickel in its leaves without being poisoned.
This is a very cool evolutionary trait because over time, this plant would have realized that being able to ingest nickel would make it more easy to gather nutrients. This new species will be called Rinorea niccolifera, and is definitely a very interesting discovery.
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Wow, this is such an interesting article! Nice summary, as well! As it turns out, many other plants have evolved to ingesting nutrients other than what they gathered from the soil, water, and sun to survive. This website explains a couple types of meat-eating plants (http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/science/meat-eating-plants.html). Arguably, the most famous of these plants is the Venus Fly Trap, which attracts insects into its "mouth," or its opening comprised of mouth-like plant segments. The Asian pitcher plant's wet, brightly colored rim causes insects that rest on it to slip down into its "mouth." The digestive enzymes in the pitcher plant's stomach are similar to that of a human; on a somewhat unrelated note, the acids in a human's stomach are, interestingly enough, known to be able to dissolve metal (http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/digestiv.htm). Although, it is to be noted that humans don't intentionally consume metal, unlike the Rinorea niccolifera. Still, it's fascinating that some plants have evolved to take advantage of their surroundings, leading to some perplexing adaptations, such as ingesting metal and meat.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, the first thought that came to mind is does that plant only eat nickel, or can it also eat meat and other plants? Also, I wonder if Venus Fly Traps have that plant disorder, because I would not be surprised because I have seen fly traps before and they are like human mouthes, so I would think that maybe it would have this disorder.
ReplyDeleteWow! That's a very interesting evolutionary trait. I wonder what the .5%-1% of those plants are. And I wonder is examining all the plants that have this trait would help give us an idea on how it is able to do this while others cannot. It would be interesting to see if scientists could examine the cells of all of those plants and give a solid answer to this question, and if it would be able to be genetically modified into other plants.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting evolutionary trait. How does this plant use the nickel though? Is it used as its primary energy source and photosynthesis as a secondary source? Is the nickel even used as energy?
ReplyDeleteThis article was very interesting to read. I wonder what the plant does with all of its nickel. How did all of the nickel get into the soil. It is cool how many tricks that are made from evolution. Overall, this seems like useful knowledge that could be applied to over organisms through bio-technology.
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