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Gardeners and Nature lovers already appreciate the botanical wonders around us, but plants are more than floral beauties. We owe the air we breathe to them, all of our food, and most of our medicine, chemicals and housing. Animals from elephants to ants depend on plant-life. And the world's flora has an equally intimate relationship with the birds, insects, mammals and humans around them.
Explore these relationships and find the latest botany discoveries through the links below.
Or check out the categories in the menu.
- What If We Paid For The Resources We Really Use?
- "The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer."
- Flies Get The Hots For Daisies With Spots
- "The spots on the flowers mimic the plant's pollinator, a small fly, which is attracted to the plant because of the spots."
- Pandas Are Not The Only Ones
- "Ethiopia's mysterious Bale monkey eats almost nothing but bamboo, according to the first study of the primate."
- Disappearing Birds Mean Forest Failure
- "The differences between the distributions of the seeds on Guam and Saipan can be attributed to the differences in their bird populations… In the bird-less forests of Guam, however, fruits ripen, fall off of the tree and settle at tree bases without being eaten or moved by birds."
- What Would Darwin Do?
- "Treasure chests stuffed with tools, seeds, flower presses and plant guides are being distributed to every state primary school in the UK to kindle children's enthusiasm for science and botany."
- The Benefit Of Having Powerful Neighbors
- "Scandinavian Scientists have discovered that a species of tree defends itself from herbivore attack by using chemicals emitted by neighbouring plants. "
- Chili To The Defense
- "After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized 'bhut jolokia,' or 'ghost chili,' to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said."
- The Flower That Makes Predators Into Pollinators
- "A species of orchid, which lives on the Chinese island of Hainan, fools its hornet pollinator by issuing a chemical that honeybees use to send an alarm."
- Ants That Do The Seeds' Bidding
- "Our results show that chemical cues alone, rather than visual or tactile characteristics of (ant garden) seeds, are sufficient to attract (ant garden) ants and elicit the seed-collecting behavior that underlies the complex (ant garden) mutualism."
- Plants That Save Lives Need Saving Themselves
- "A global survey carried out by more than 100 botanists and other scientists has found that more than 10,000 species of medicinal plants face extinction, including many used in prescription drugs that cannot be commercially synthesised."
- The Wind Beneath Their Wings
- "A tiny species of wasp, just 1.5 millimetres long, can shuttle pollen between isolated fig trees in a desert landscape, flying up to 160km in a single night with the help of the prevailing winds."
- Ostriches May Not Do It, But Plants Do
- "Goldenrod individuals with nodding stems (aka, "candy-cane" stems) have proven much less likely to suffer ovipositions from gall-inducing insects than individuals with erect stems. Thus, "defense by ducking" appears to be an effective strategy in S. altissima, and it is likely to turn out to be important in other species as well. "
- Good For Your Lawn, Bad For Native Flora
- "The practical implications of our findings are that the more herbivores there are in an area, the more likely it will be that infected tall fescue grass will spread and suppress native plants."
- More In A Pitcher Plant Than Dead Bugs
- "To avoid sharing precious food resources with other micro-organisms such as fungi, the carnivorous plant has developed a host of agents that act as natural anti-fungal agents, …The idea that liquid from a plant pitcher could stave off infection has been documented in the folk literature of India, where people drink carnivorous plant pitcher juice as a general elixir."
- Climate Change A Matter Of Belief More Than Facts
- " Over the past few months, polls show that fewer Americans say they believe humans are making the planet dangerously warmer, despite a raft of scientific reports that say otherwise.
This puzzles many climate scientists — but not some social scientists, whose research suggests that facts may not be as important as one's beliefs. "
- A Flower Solves Its Energy Crisis
- "Symbiosis comes in many flavours. Lots of animals trade protection or food in a mutually beneficial relationship. Now there is a flower that offers yeast its sugary nectar in exchange for warmth"
- When Pollinators Are More Trouble Than They Are Worth
- "But pollinating hawkmoths often lay their eggs on the plants they visit and the voracious caterpillars start eating the plants. Fortunately for the (Nicotiana) plant, it has a back-up plan."
- Bees aren't All About Honey
- "Honeybees are important to plants for reasons that go beyond pollination… The insects' buzz also defends plants against the caterpillars that would otherwise munch on them undisturbed. "
- Make Leaves Not War
- "Genetic analysis reveals an evolutionary trend for milkweed plants away from resisting predators to putting more effort into repairing themselves faster than caterpillars — particularly the monarch butterfly caterpillar — can eat them."
- The Amazon Giveth As Well As Taketh Away
- "For years the Amazon forest has been helping slow down climate change… But relying on this subsidy from nature is extremely dangerous. If the Earth's carbon sinks slow or go into reverse, as our results show is possible, carbon dioxide levels will rise even faster."
- When Mutualism Isn't Mutual, Part 2
- "Wasps do not always pollinate the fig. Fig trees "punish" these "cheaters" by dropping unpollinated fruit, killing the wasp's offspring inside."
- When Mutualism Isn't Mutual, Part 1
- "Many, if not all, plants maintain relationships with bacteria, and like any hardworking homeowner, they have developed ways to get rid of freeloaders … biologists have found. In a study of a coastal California lupine that harbors nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, … researchers have shown that the roots respond differently to bacteria that efficiently produce nitrogen than they do to the slackers."
- Breaking Up Is Just Bad
- "This does support the concept that landscape fragmentation is restricting the movement of pollinators, and that may be a part of our pollination problem. If we get to the point where almost all patches of forests are fragmented, it's possible that could completely disrupt forest plant ecosystems."
- A Crop To Combat Climate Change
- "…Salicornia is a better photosynthesizer than wheat and some other grains… Salicornia (like sugarcane) laps up carbon dioxide better, does so in saline water, and gives oil…"
- What's In A Name
- "Biological taxonomy (naming and classifying living organisms) can be fun and weird!"
- The Cricket That Likes Orchids
- "A new species of cricket has been caught on camera - and its bizarre behaviour has surprised scientists. Far from living up to the cricket's plant-destroying reputation, this species lends a helping hand to flora by acting as a pollinator."
- The Sea Slug That Is Animal And Plant
- "It’s easy being green for a sea slug that has stolen enough genes to become the first animal shown to make chlorophyll like a plant."
- Maybe The Plant Doesn't Want To Be Seen
- "The dried bracts on a rare woodland plant, Monotropsis odorata, might serve a similar purpose as the stripes on a tiger or the grey coloration of the wings of the peppered moth, namely to hide."
- Boy Plants, Girl Plants and Their Fungal Friends
- "For species with separate male and female plants, do interactions with mycorrhizal fungi vary between the sexes and consequently play a role in the male/female structure of the population?"
- Acacias That Entice Ants Know When To Repel Them, Too
- "The plants with the closest relationships with ants — those that provided homes for their miniature guard army — produced the chemicals that were most effective at keeping the ants at bay."
- Score One For The Insects
- "Dutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues have discovered that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones."
- Add Tomatoes and Petunias To List Of Carnivorous Plants
- "We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think."
- What Doesn't Kill Us
- "When it comes to maintaining and accentuating the mind-boggling plant diversity of the Amazon rain forests, insects are a friend, not a foe, according to a new study. '…The point is that insect herbivores magnify the differences between the habitat.'"
- Sweat The Small Stuff
- "A tropical tree creates insect nurseries in its buds for miniscule pollinators, say German scientists. This novel strategy relies on thrips, insects rarely considered pollinators. Darwin dismissed thrips as annoyances that fouled his pollination experiments, and since then biologists studying pollination haven't paid much attention to this dot of a creature. "
- What Street Trees Can Do
- "Urban forests have a role to play in reducing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. Urban trees reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) through sequestration and reducing GHG emissions by conserving energy used for space heating and cooling."
- How Green Is Your Business?
- "Forests provide pure water and regulate temperatures. Wetlands help mitigate floods. Businesses can hurt these and other ecosystem services (like wind breaks and the pollination of crops) or then can assist and benefit from them. A new report from Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) looks at seven tools business can use to assess their impacts on ecosystem services. "
- Trees Can Make Their Own 911 Call
- "It turned out that a slight difference of acidity between tree and soil creates an imbalance of hydrogen ions, generating voltage. The next question was: What could be done with such limited power?"
- Biodiversity Pays Off
- "Diversity is valuable socially, economically and now environmentally. Research by Michigan State University scientists has found that growing more corn to produce ethanol creating less diverse landscapes — reduces the ability of beneficial insects to control pests, a loss valued at about $58 million per year in the four states studied."
- Spicy Peppers Protect Themselves
- "The new research provides convincing evidence that the bitter and sometimes toxic chemicals found in many fruits serve to prevent microbial attack — a popular idea that has been difficult to demonstrate. "
- EXTRA! Extra! Biodiversity Theory Proven?
- "It's still a mystery why there are 300 times more herbivorous insects than bird species, but now we are able to implicate traits of both plants and insects that have given rise to so many species."
- The Little Guys Win
- "Until now most of the thinking has suggested that to be a good competitor in the forest, you have to be a big plant …But our research shows it’s virtually the other way around."
- Plant-based Pharmaceuticals After The Plants Are Gone
- "Devil's claw extracts are in phase II clinical trials for the treatment of hip and knee arthritis. Other promising uses are not far behind. But while the demand for these beneficial compounds is increasing, the supply of natural Devil's claw is dwindling."
- Only Trees Can prevent Forest Fires
- "The research results suggest that some trees may modify or “engineer” their environment, including the characteristic fire frequencies in a landscape, to facilitate their own persistence at the expense of their competitors."
- Health Clinic Accepts Seedlings As Payment
- "The Asri Clinic doesn't take credit cards. Instead, the clinic accepts payments that improve the local ecosystem, be it seedlings for replanting, eggshells for composting, even manure."
- Secrets Of A Long, Sane Life
- "A daily tipple and a potter in the garden are the keys to a long and healthy life, Australian research has revealed."
- The Greatest Spider-Ant-Plant Story
- "It is the first-known predominantly vegetarian spider; all of the other known 40,000 spider species are thought to be mainly carnivorous."
- Keeping A Relationship Balanced
- "Senita cacti and senita moths have a rare, mutually dependent relationship, one of only three known dependencies in which an insect actively pollinates flowers for the purpose of assuring a food resource for its offspring."
- Ants In Trees: Mutualists Or Developers?
- "Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees."
- Plants' Wiley Defenses
- "Plants are not as defenseless as they may seem. Various plant hormones work together to specifically fend off attacks. … By 'consulting' with each other plant hormones determine which defense mechanism they shall set in motion."
- Every Pollinator Rule Has An Exception
- "Supposedly specialized flowers often host a great diversity of insects and birds, whose impacts vary. A slightly bumbling bee might provide vital services when better pollinators aren't around but then become a nuisance, essentially a thief, in better times."
- Insects Manipulated By Plants For Sex
- "The plants heat up and emit a toxic odor to drive pollen-covered insects out of male cycad cones, and then use a milder odor to draw the bugs into female cones so the plants are pollinated."
- Pitcher Plant Toilets
- "When you gotta go you gotta go, and for small tropical mammals called tree shrews, a pitcher plant serves as a handy toilet, new video research finds."
- Carniverous Plants Evolve For Bigger Meals
- "…the advantage of being able to catch and digest larger insects may have driven the evolution of the snap traps' many specializations, including sensitive trigger hairs on the inside surface of each leaf and the ability to respond quickly to a potential meal — a Venus flytrap can snap a leaf shut in a fraction of a second."
- Plants That Prey On Mammals
- "A new plant species has been discovered in the central Philippines - a giant carnivorous plant… so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its trap"
- Robinson Crusoe's Endangered Island
- "Daniel Defoe may have made this part of the world famous (although he never acknowledged in print that his fictional epic was inspired by Selkirk's adventures), but the real story of these dramatically beautiful islands is one of invasive alien species. "
- Autumn Leaf Color Decided 35 Million Years Ago
- "Scientists… believe that red-leafed trees in America and Asia only exist because they and their insect pests managed to survive a series of ice ages long ago."
- Red Flowers May Not Signal Love
- "The colour red acts as a warning to large vertebrate herbivores like emus, parrots and kangaroos that the flower contains distasteful or even poisonous cyanogenic compounds. It seems that Western Australian plants have not only developed a remarkable defence against would-be flower predators, but that they also clearly advertise the fact."
- African Sunbirds Acting Like American Hummingbirds
- "An African bird has learned to hover so that it can collect nectar from flowers, just as hummingbirds do in the Americas. The bird has an unlikely trainer: an invasive South American plant that has made its way to South Africa."
- And Now To Explain Red Leaves
- "Aphids don't show up as frequently on apple trees that turn red in the fall as on those that stay green or yellow… Also, young aphids feeding on those formerly red trees in spring weren't as likely to grow to maturity as aphids on trees that turned green or yellow in the fall."
- Partner With Pollinators
- "Don't just lament the loss of pollinators, do something about it! A helpful guide for discovering what to plant in your area. "
- Rosemary Replacing Fossil Fuels
- "The humble rosemary plant could revolutionise the way that some oil-based products are made, providing a green alternative to the synthetics and fossil fuels presently used. Research scientists (explore) the feasibility of using the environmentally friendly antioxidants (AO) extracted from rosemary plants for the production of cosmetics, plastics and lubricants."
- Carbon In, Carbon Out
- "Hurricanes and tropical storms kill or damage millions of trees in the United States each year, and that fallen wood and vegetation decomposes, returning more than 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually, researchers report."
- Evil Beauties
- "Orchids are manipulative, self-centered, wily and sometimes downright sadistic. And yet insects and humans alike are ensnared -- perhaps for those very reasons -- by their ethereal beauty."
- Just Grow Up
- "A zoo in the United Kingdom has come up with a novel approach to locally sourcing some of its food for animals and dealing with the challenge of limited space: vertical farming."
- Native Tree To Save African Farmers
- "Faidherbia is one of several trees that can capture nitrogen from the air through its roots and incorporate it into its leaves. But what makes it unique is that it grows in the dry season and drops its leaves come the rainy season, when crops start to grow."
- Making Hard Choices
- "No one's certain how the meadows formed, and the encroachment is a natural succession… But the Forest Service believes the meadows have both scenic and botanic value, and the only way to keep them open is to beat back the advancing trees."
- A Mouthful Of Leaves Keeps The Predators Away
- "Wild orangutans in Borneo hold leaves to their mouths to make their voices sound deeper than they actually are, a new study shows."
- Forests Moderate Global Warming
- "As water helps moderate temperatures of nearby land, large tracts of forests can also help lessen the extremes of land in the area, according to research. "
- Greener Fungicides Are Safer
- "Exploiting a little-known punch/counterpunch strategy in the ongoing battle between disease-causing fungi and crop plants, scientists in Canada are reporting development of a new class of "green" fungicides that could provide a safer, more environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional fungicides."
- Bats Pollinating - Photos
- "Amazing pictures (and some video) of bats caught in the act of pollination"
- Seeds Will Have Their Day In The Sun
- "Even as scientists develop methods to control plant reproduction, each time we yield to the temptation to pluck a ripe juicy apple from its branch, we too become pawns in one of nature's carefully devised game plans."
- Discriminating Bees Sniff First, Drink After
- "The study suggests that a bee's ability to associate floral scent with the best nectar may be the key to understanding how floral scent has evolved in flowering plants."
- The Wild Maize Problem Persists
- "Genes from genetically engineered corn have been found in traditional crop strains in Mexico, said a new study that is likely to reignite a bitter controversy over biotech maize."
- Nature Preserves More Than Just The Sum Of Their parts
- "The biodiversity in a patch of habitat can extend outside the borders of a protected area; this effect is magnified when the habitats are connected by corridors. Their findings provide a strategy for managing nature preserves to maximize biodiversity in the small spaces that are already formally protected."
- Orchids Can Still Surprise
- "Oh my God, you've found the missing link. Everyone's been trying to find evolution in action."
- Why Do Male Flowers Have The Fragrance?
- "This was a surprise in fundamental plant biology …If you ask people where the perfume of a flower comes from, they'll likely say the female parts or the petals."
- Flowers Just Want To Be Helpful
- "Flowers pollinated by insects have evolved special cells on their petals to help bees stay put while they are feeding."
- Where The Trees Are Dying
- "Trees in western U.S. forests are dying at twice the rate they were a few decades ago, a new study finds. Researchers think the most likely culprit is the regional impacts of global warming."
- Where The Tall Trees Are
- "This global pattern to plant height has been discovered for the first time, after scientists reviewed the size and locations of more than 7000 species. "
- Watch Attenborough's 'Secret Life of Plants'
- "Six full-length on-line episodes of this wonderful documentary"
- Birds Change Tune When Vegetation Changes
- "Using computer software to compare the songs then and now, she found that where vegetation had gotten thicker, the birdsongs had slowed down significantly in tempo."
- Secrets Of Maples' Flight Revealed
- "A heavy body and lone, stubby wing seem unlikely features for an object trying to fly — but they help the seeds of maple trees travel thousands of meters from a parent tree."
- Plant, Know Thyself
- "Animals have the ability to distinguish self from non-self, which has allowed them to evolve immune systems and, in some instances, to act preferentially towards individuals that are genetically identical or related. Self-recognition is less well known for plants, although recent work indicates that physically connected roots recognize self and reduce competitive interactions. Sagebrush uses volatile cues emitted by clipped branches of self or different neighbours to increase resistance to herbi"
- Landscape Tonic
- "A native holly tree called yaupon can be used to make a drink similar to green tea… the ornamental holly is the only plant in the United States that produces substantial amounts of caffeine. It grows wild throughout the Southeast."
- Toxics As Tonic
- "It is interesting to think about the effect of the prairie dog, which was an amazing ecosystem engineer on a very large scale here in North America… these animals may have driven the evolution of selenium hyperaccumulation as an elemental defense against herbivory in many different plant species."
- Cutting Edge Protection
- "Findings suggest that the most common role for crystals may be to act as a deterrent to herbivory, with different types of crystals performing different roles in protecting the plant."
- Benefits Of Faking Illness
- "The plants feign sickness to stop it being attacked by insect pests known as mining moths, which would otherwise eat its healthy leaves."
- Africa's Acacias Struck By Cancer
- "You can never underestimate the importance of the Acacia karroo. So anything that threatens its existence constitutes a major worry. We are particularly worried by its propensity to jump hosts."
- Sundance Channel - GreenPorno
- "Isabella Rossellini's amazing presentation of animal courtship (no naughty pictures!)"
- Africam - Always Live, Always Wild
- "See what's visiting the water holes right now!"
- Thirty Creepiest Trees On Earth
- "Real trees to make you shudder"
- The Most Alien Looking Place On Earth
- "Unbelieveable flora from the island of Socotra"
- If There Were No Acorns
- "The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head"
- Regurgitating For Self Sufficiency
- "The umbrellabirds also regurgitate seeds they've brought from various locations at lek sites, a practice that appears to create the dense clumps of genetically diverse fruit trees they need for food, shelter, and reproduction"
- A Novel Way To Disperse Seeds
- "Brazilian botanists have caught Mother Nature playing with squirt guns."
- If Bananas Were Spheres and Tomatoes Were Cylinders
- "What is the difference between apples and oranges? Why is a banana shaped like a banana? The question might seem esoteric, suitable only for researchers with ovate-shaped heads. But the answer, if it can be fully formed, promises profound and widespread applications."
- Mistletoe Magic
- "Some of the plants have flowers with trick openings. Some shoot their seeds farther than most watermelon spitters can spout. Some mistletoes grow as parasites on other parasitic mistletoes. And some give North Americans and Australians yet another way to misunderstand each other."
- A Walk In Nature Heals The Mind
- "When we compared the scores for the walks in different environments, we found that after the walk in the park children generally concentrated better than they did after a walk in the downtown area or the neighborhood area. The greenest space was best at improving attention after exposure."
- Redeeming Prisoners, Redeeming Forests
- "The inmates saw themselves as active and valued participants in an ongoing exploration of how to solve a critical environmental problem…They seemed to be keen to make a difference to society, and the project appeared to serve as a subtle-but-real form of redemption."
- Take Me To The Treetops Pt. 1
- "The Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop walkway, crafted from over 400 tons of weathered steel, rises 18 metres high (59ft) to allow visitors the opportunity to walk among the highest parts of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew."
- Take Me To The Treetops Pt. 2
- "Botanical gardens and arboretums are a very safe way to introduce children to the natural world, and tree houses are a natural, alluring way to bring the two together."
- Trees To Protect Us From Ticks And Mosquitos
- "This newly-discovered repellent can be prepared inexpensively from pine oil feedstock in ton quantities for large-scale commercial application."
- The Trees Sing To Us And We Sing To The Trees
- "The ultrasonic din of dying trees inspires a new kind of research to save forests from beetle attacks — and battle climate change."
- Plants Take Their Own Aspirin
- "Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered."
- Let Plants Be Our Lab Rats
- "The genetics behind variable drug responses is not peculiar to humans but exists also in other branches on the tree of life … We can harness simple organisms to understand more about the genetics and biochemistry of variable drug responses, which could help uncover new factors that contribute to variable drug responses in humans."
- Shade Grown Coffee Reduces Global Warming
- "Shady farms have greater water availability than sunny farms, due in part to lower evaporation rates from the coffee plants and soils. More shade also reduced peak temperatures between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when southern Mexican coffee plants experience the greatest heat stress."
- The Roof Is Green, But Is It GREEN?
- "Stephan Brenneisen, a Swiss green roof specialist and ecologist, claims that many of the thin substrates on sedum roofs lose their effectiveness over time… [he] also found that many sedum roofs have minimal positive effects on storm water retention, energy use, or the urban climate — core arguments that have been used to justify the implementation of green roofs. Moreover, ecologists attribute rather limited biodiversity values to sedum roofs and prefer roofs that offer a secondary ha"
- Why Not Grow A Building?
- "Engineers and plant scientists… have taken their leafy designs to the next, and more practical and playful, level. Pilot projects under way… include streetlamps, gates and playground structures made entirely from trees, as well as hospital park benches that grow their own foliage for shade."
- Leaves Set Their Own Thermostat
- "Tree leaves do a pretty good job of achieving temperatures that are just right for photosynthesis, even if it's too hot or too cold where they live, a new study shows."
- Plants Can Manipulate Pollinators' Behavior
- "Scientists report the results from field experiments… that show that particular components of the floral fragrance attracted pollinators, while bitter-tasting and poisonous components of floral nectar enforced modest drinking behavior."
- Vine Design
- "Vines were twisted in one direction not by global effects but by molecular-level biology… the fact that scientists had never noticed the preference of vines to twist to the left showed how little was known about the botanical world."
- A Pollinator Likes A Drink Now And Then
- "A tiny tree-shrew that lives on alcoholic nectar could - pound for pound - drink the average human under the table, scientists have discovered."
- Lure Pollinators With Fungi
- "From the region that gave us pollination by cockroaches and dung beetles, here's another of Nature's peculiarities: a plant that relies on a fungus as well as a pollinating insect."
- Follow The Seaweed
- "The great diversity of seaweed found … demonstrates that early Americans knew their way around coastal areas, researchers say — adding further evidence to the idea that the earliest immigrants populated the New World by traveling down the Pacific Coast, rather than dispersing along strictly inland routes as has traditionally been thought."
- Bushmeat Crisis Threatens Trees
- "Recent research shows that in those regions of the South American rain forests where monkey species have been exterminated, certain tree species have little chance of survival."
- Ants Are A Plants' Best Friend
- "Despite their small size, ants represent the ’glue’ for many ecological interactions. In the future, the natural defense systems of ant-plants could have useful applications for agriculture. Could ants offer ’free’ pest control to crops?"
- Hey Bees! Orchids Do It Better!
- "If the orchids thrive on imitating female bees, the match should be as perfect as possible…. Unless, of course, the males like their girls just a little bit different."
- For Mosses, Bigger Is Not Better
- "Textbooks state that moss sperm need to swim or splash to a female moss tuft. However, an experiment with a common moss species shows that sperm hitchhike on mites and tiny insects."
- Rules For A Pollination Three-Way
- "When multiple plant species occur in the same habitat and share the same pollinator, large amounts of pollen may be transferred between different species. Experiments with bats and flowers showed that greater differences in flower shape between two species decreases 'incorrect' pollen transfer and thus maximizes successful pollination."
- You Gotta Work It!
- "Flowers 'wave' at insects to get their attention, scientists have discovered. The finding helps explain why many flowers waft in the breeze, and reveals a hitherto unknown trick used to attract pollinators."
- Plant Extinctions Leave Permanent Gaps
- "The results showed that ecosystems with fewer plant species produced up to 50 percent less plant biomass than those with more natural levels of plant diversity. You might think extinctions would just mean other plants would take over and fill in the gaps, but that is not the case, the scientists found."
- Benefits of Invasive Plants
- "According to the research, the existence of invasive plants in invaded sites can increase visits from insects to the majority of native plants. In this way the ‘floral market’ hypothesis in which only the invasive flowers are seen to benefit and the native flowers are no longer visited by insects is contradicted."
- Biofuel That Doesn't Compete With Food Crops
- "China is the world's largest producer of rice, a crop that leaves behind roughly 230 million tons of rice straw each year — the stem and leaves are left behind after harvesting the grains… All that biological matter, or biomass, could in theory get converted into biofuel with the aid of germs that break it down into useful chemicals"
- Putting Children In Children's Gardens
- "Adults make many assumptions about children and gardening, and instead of enlisting the creativity and innovative thinking of young people, they often involve children in the more mundane tasks of planting, weeding, and watering."
- Birds Select Healthy Diets
- "Our study shows for the first time that flavonoids are beneficial compounds that can boost the immune system in a living organism. We also found that wild birds actively select food containing flavonoids. Our results have important implications for the study of ecology and immunity in birds, and for the evolution of the relationship between plants and the birds and animals they rely on to disperse their seeds."
- A Green Office Is A Happy Office
- "Findings indicated that people who worked in offices with plants and windows reported that they felt better about their job and the work they performed."
- A Plant Needs Its Mother
- "…Plants grown in the same setting as their maternal plant performed almost 3½ times better than those raised in a different environment — indicating that maternal plants give cues to their offspring that help them adapt to their environmental conditions."
- A Plant Needs Its Sister
- "New research shows that at least one species recognizes its kin, and becomes much more aggressive in soaking up resources if the guy growing next to it is a member of the same species, but a total stranger. But if it's a sibling, it backs off."
- A Plant Needs Its Father And Its Mother
- "One widespread sexual strategy that remains an evolutionary enigma is the production of both male and bisexual flowers in the same plant, which occurs in approximately 4000 species. What is the advantage of producing these redundant male flowers? … producing male flowers can make a plant a better mother."
- A Plant Needs Its Neighbors
- "Researchers found that a rare plant, Trochetia blackburniana, benefits from its proximity to Pandanus plants because they house high densities of geckos responsible for pollination."
- When A Rose Does Not Smell As Sweet
- "Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source."
- Take A Pine Tree On Vacation
- "Some science also suggests the bark extract may be useful in combating deep venous thrombosis, a dangerous blood-clotting sometimes dubbed economy class syndrome because it can arise from sitting in cramped condtions."
- Neglected African Fruits To The Rescue
- "Africas own fruits are a largely untapped resource that could combat malnutrition and boost environmental stability and rural development in Africa."
- Native Plants Save Lives And Create Jobs
- "Scientists want to untangle the chemical makeup of… traditional remedies in search of new medicines that could help cancer patients. Their findings could also provide an economic cure for a region that has suffered the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the past decade."
- You Can Help Scientists Track Climate Change
- "Climate change may be affecting our backyards and communities in ways that we dont even notice…Project BudBurst is designed to help both adults and children understand the changing relationship among climate, seasons, and plants, while giving the participants the tools to communicate their observations to others."
- Fish As Sole Seed Dispersers
- "This is the first report that I know of suggesting links between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems where fishing may be impacting tropical forests."
- Does Genetically Engineered Corn Damage Streams?
- "This study provides the first evidence that toxins from Bt corn may travel long distances in streams and may harm stream insects that serve as food for fish."
- Three Centuries Of Draining Wetlands
- "Standard notions of the natural eastern US landscape with its meandering ribbon-like streams may be misguided, suggests historical research."
- Saving Trees Can Kill Them
- "…as the beasts have been kept away, the whole ecology of the fenced areas has changed. The trees growth patterns slowed; many sickened, and their death rate doubled; they produced fewer thorns for the ants to use as homes and less nectar for the ants to eat."
- Have You Had Your Gum Arabic Today?
- "Not since baking soda has there been a natural commodity that has so many different uses."
- When Medicines Mysteriously Appear
- "At first, it didnt sound like the way a modern cancer treatment would be created. As the story went, it was an elixir extracted from the root of a mysterious plant found deep in the Amazon forest in Ecuador."
- When The Medicines Disappear
- "A global survey carried out by more than 100 botanists and other scientists has found that more than 10,000 species of medicinal plants face extinction, including many used in prescription drugs that cannot be commercially synthesized."
- How Could You Not Notice?
- "Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm on the island of Madagascar."
- This Bat Makes Some Flower Very Happy
- "One nectar bat can launch its tongue one and a half times its body length, longer than any other mammal and second only to chameleons among vertebrates, scientists recently discovered."
- Climate Change, Flying Foxes And Mass Extinctions
- "They are a keystone species for forest environments… There are lots of other species whose fate may also be in serious doubt."
- Roots Have A Pulse, Too
- "When the scientists trained their cameras on the hairs, rather than witnessing a slow, steady lengthening, they were surprised to see the hairs undergoing rhythmic pulses of growth every 20 seconds."
- Food Or Fuel? What Do We Value Most?
- "In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled."
- Three Wise Mens Gift Becoming Threatened Species
- "For thousands of years, frankincense has been hugely important both socially and economically as an ingredient in incense and perfumes. But… its production in the Horn of Africa is declining because Boswellia woodlands are failing to regenerate."
- Explosive Dwarf Mistletoe
- "These plants are extremely prolific and the explosive discharge mechanism assures that the seed is distanced from the source, but is not moved so far that it is unlikely to leave the stand of host conifers."
- Underwater Gilled Mushroom — A First
- "As far as weve determined, this is a first in Oregon as well as a first in the world… Were not aware of anything at all like this in mycology where the reproductive mushroom structure appears to be perennially underwater."
- New Bamboo Species Discovered In U.S. — Now there Are Three
- "But we still dont understand exactly how long it has been since our bamboos separated from their Asiatic cousins. And we dont know how we ended up with three species in North America and 500 in East Asia."
- Global Warming Not The Only Effect Of Increased CO2
- "Plants would have to take in more water to counter the increased amounts of CO2. … You also have a food security issue. If we heat things up and lose more water, what are farmers going to do?" … "Change crops? Use more water?"
- Will Plants Say "I Am Not Your Mother"?
- "Scientists hope they've figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup."
- Invasive Plants Have An Edge
- "Weve seen this capability in a number of invasive plants that have come from Eurasia, such as garlic mustard… The roots exude a toxin that kills native plants."
- Lost and Found Orchid
- "It is described, in various reports, as smelling like stinky feet, sweaty clothing and a horse corral on a hot afternoon."
- Food Source For Marginal Farmers If It Doesnt Poison Them
- "Scientists believe they have discovered a protein-rich starch staple in the yam bean in Peru."
- Flowers Pursue Co-Evolution More Aggressively Than Animals
- "Basically, the flowers are making an evolutionary decision."
- Bears Use Trees To Communicate
- "A study suggests that male grizzlies seeking mates are marking the trees to communicate with other males - possibly to dodge deadly bear battles."
- Ants Use Plant To Construct Trap
- "This is the first time we have seen ants capable of building a trap to ambush and capture prey."
- Echinacea Boosts Immune System
- "Even when patients were directly inoculated with a rhinovirus - the most common cold-causing virus - echinacea reduced cold incidence by 35%."
- 3000 Year Old Indian Herb Reduces Cholesterol
- "Scientists in the US say they have found evidence to back giving it to patients with high cholesterol"
- Algae Cleans Emissions Then Becomes Biofuel
- "The Israeli company Seambiotic has found a way to produce biofuel by channeling smokestack carbon dioxide emissions through pools of algae that clean it. The growing algae thrives on the added nutrients, and become a useful biofuels."
- Ants Kill Plants That Get In Their Way
- "An Amazonian ant that uses its own 'herbicide' to shape its surroundings has been described by scientists."
- African Plant Discovered To Kill Mosquitoes
- "Polygonum Senegalese can work as a substitute to DDT in the control of malaria, since it tackles the mosquito problem right from the first stages of the mosquitos lifecycle."
- Venus Flytrap Mechanics Revealed
- "As a vegetarian, it is nice to think about plants that eat animals rather than the other way around!"
- How Does A Plant Know To Defend Itself?
- "Sensing attack, plants frequently generate toxins, emit volatile chemicals to attract the pests natural enemies, or launch other defensive tactics."
- The Garden Of Eden Unprotected
- "We are relying too much on the relatively few cultivated varieties of crops. This puts us at risk from changing environmental conditions. And also [wild crop relatives] have genetic diversity that can provide us with resistance to pests and diseases."
- Samoan Plant Excites Researchers
- "American researchers are so excited about the plant they have signed an agreement to pay royalties to Samoa for any drugs developed from it"
- Developers vs.Conservationists… in Malaysia
- "Sitting in the fast developing suburb of Petaling Jaya, the forest is in the centre of a dispute between local residents and the state government over the conversion of some 140ha for a mixed development project."
- Why Sunflowers Do Math Better Than We Do
- "Scientists have puzzled over this pattern of plant growth for hundreds of years. Why would plants prefer the golden angle to any other? And how can plants possibly ‘know’ anything about Fibonacci numbers?"
- Marine Plants That Create Sand
- "Its a unique plant in a number of ways, but one thats quite interesting is its production of rock"
- What Can YOU Do in Half a Millisecond?
- "Like a medieval catapult, the bunchberry dogwood shoots pollen grains into the air faster than the Venus flytrap can snap its jaws shut, giving this launcher the speed record for plants."
- Pines Outwit Crossbills Outwit Pines Outwit…
- "As South Hills crossbills exerted selection on lodgepole pine for increased seed defenses, lodgepole pine in turn exerted selection on crossbills for larger bills to deal with these increased seed defenses."
- Walk If You Want But Plants Prefer to Fly
- "Celebrated in Buddhist temples and cultivated for its wood and cottony fibers, the kapok tree now is upsetting an idea that biologists have clung to for decades: the notion that African and South American rainforests are similar because the continents were connected 96 million years ago."
- Zoo Landscapes Reduce Animal Stress
- "In addition to the significant overall improvement in the animals welfare after the shrubs were planted, the researchers found stress related behaviour specifically directed at the visitors, such as approaching the glass, reduced by 54 per cent."
- Plants Are Not Animals… and vice verse
- "As it happens, plants are not only alive in their own right. They are also the basis of virtually all life on earth, including ours."
- Disappearing Leaves? Disappearing Frogs!
- "A decline in the amount of leaves on the ground could be behind the rapid demise of frog species."
- New Class of AIDS Drugs From Sunflowers
- "Sunflowers can produce a substance which prevents the AIDS pathogen HIV from reproducing, at least in cell cultures."
- Plants Increase Rainfall
- "More rain makes for more plant growth: that much is obvious. But now a statistical study of satellite images has added weight to the reverse notion: more plants also make for more rain."
- When Bees Disappear Plants Follow
- "In Britain, where bee diversity has fallen and hoverflies have at best held steady, there have been declines in 70% of the wildflowers that require insects for pollination. However, wind-pollinated or self-pollinating plants have held constant or increased"
- Climate Change Causes Pollinators and Plants to Be Out of Sync
- "If climate change disturbs the timing between flowering and pollinators that overwinter in place, such as butterflies, bumblebees, flies, and even mosquitoes, the intimate relationships between plants and pollinators that have co-evolved over the past thousands of years will be irrevocably altered."
- Newly Discovered Orchid Does Without Pollinators
- "Scientists have discovered an orchid that never needs to get a date — it can fertilize itself by performing a sexual act never before seen in flowers."
- What We Can Do For Pollinators
- "Since pollination is essential to crop and plant life, the Convention on Biological Diversity has adopted the International Pollinators Initiative to promote the conservation and sustainable use of pollinator diversity in agriculture and related ecosystems."
- What Nature Does For Us
- "A new conservation model that measures the value of ecosystem services benefiting humans - ranging from flood control to crop pollination - can foster more win-win solutions between wilderness advocates and landowners."
- Seed Dispersal Makes the Forest Go Round
- "Trees with smaller fruit tended to be less widely dispersed than trees bearing larger fruit, strengthening the argument that larger-bodied birds and mammals, in eating larger fruit, carry the seeds of these plants over larger distances. Wind-dispersed seeds were observed to have a surprisingly tight cluster radius, likely explained by the dense forest canopy stifling wind speeds."
- You Can't Restore Habitat if You Can't Get The Seed: Rainforest Version
- "Using the essential oils of fruit to attract bats for seed dispersal… would be an easy way of increasing the flow of native seeds to the area, and of ensuring a high diversity in the forest."
- You Can't Restore Habitat if You Can't Get The Seed: Prairie Version
- "The couple never planned to spend five years building a harvester, but like a barbed needle-and-thread grass seed, once the idea got in their heads they couldn't pull it out."
- Brazil Nuts Save The Communities That Protect Them
- "Help is at hand for the Amazon rainforest and Brazil's poverty-stricken rural people - courtesy of the country's famous native nut."
- Competition Is The Drama, But Benefactors Set The Stage
- "The stage is set by those species that create habitat… The organisms and interactions that occur within the habitat, such as crabs eating snails or annual plants competing with one another, are just players and roles that we see because of that stage."
- School Programs Use Endangered Plants to Grow New Scientists
- "Philomath High School senior Logan Bernart spent his lunchtime Wednesday looking over a college-level research paper, and spraying water on hundreds of seedlings in the school's greenhouse."
- Surviving Only In The Greenhouse
- "THE only surviving specimens of one of the world's rarest plants have gone on display after cuttings taken from a Malaysian mountain by Scots scientists more than a decade ago flourished while the flower died out in its native habitat."
- Natural Succession Cannot Be Ignored
- "Lavender and cypress grown together and inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi under glass showed significantly higher growth than when they were cultivated and developed separately."
- Mayo Clinic Harvests Cures From 17th Century Herbal
- "The study provides a creative new model for drug discovery. It integrates nontraditional, ancient medical information with advanced technologies to identify promising natural products to investigate as drugs for new and better therapies."
- Drug Companies Harvest Cures From Chinese Herbalists
- "The collaboration between East and West on drug development is in many ways an unlikely one. Chinese and Western specialists approach pharmacology from very different angles."
- Why the Giraffe's Neck is So Long: The Field Experiment
- "This [study] provides the first real experimental evidence that the long neck of the giraffe might have evolved as a consequence of competition, which provides support for a previously untested textbook example of natural selection."
- The Secret Strategies of Squirrels and Trees
- "Somehow the squirrels could anticipate when the trees would be laden with cones, and only during these years they produced a second litter of young."
- One Plant Species, Two Different Pollinators — Where's This Headed?
- "…The future of red and yellow varieties of a San Diego wildflower may depend on the fates of two different animals."
- What Gorillas Teach Pharmacists
- "If Aframomum lives up to the current hopes for it… we will owe a great debt to early native healers in Africa… and the wild lowland gorillas whose habits they perhaps observed and mimicked."
- Global Warming causes Global Warming: The Phytoplankton Connection
- "This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton growth rates go down and along with them the amount of carbon dioxide these ocean plants consume. That allows carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, which would produce more warming."
- Dodder: Plant on Plant Violence
- "It's probably one of the creepiest plants I know," says [Swarthmore College biology professor Colin Purrington]. "It's a horrible existence for the host plant. If plants could scream, they'd have the loudest screams when they had dodder attached."
- When Worms Garden
- "We are in a state of speculation as to why earthworms even collect seeds."
- Bees Go for Flowers That Are Hot!
- "…the tests showed that bees preferred warmer plants and could learn to identify the hotter species by the colour of flowers."
- What the Lotus Taught the Engineers
- "The self-cleaning action of the lotus plant has intrigued researchers for decades, and recent studies done by researchers in several different groups have demonstrated the reasons behind the plant's unique abilities."
- How Can a Cloud Forest Exist in the Desert?
- "The forest is especially unique… because it 'is a water-limited seasonal cloud forest' that is kept alive by water droplets gathered from passing clouds — ground fog. The water dribbles into the ground and sustains the trees later when the weather is dry."
- Endangered Plants Like Money in the Bank?
- "The department says the scheme will ensure much more biodiversity is protected as well as speeding up the planning process and providing developers with more certainty. It hopes biobanking will eventually replace the Threatened Species Conservation Act, which all parties say has failed the environment."
- Responding to the Loss of the Aral Sea
- "Two radically different solutions to this environmental nightmare are being tried out by the two countries that share the remnants of the sea."
- Not How Leaves Turn Red… But Why?
- "Does the red-making machine turn on by accident, or do the red pigments contribute something valuable? Why would passengers fleeing the Titanic stop to repaint their staterooms?"
- Orange Snapdragons Pit "Evolutionists" against "Creationists"
- "If Darwin's theory of natural selection fails because critical intermediates — such as these elusive orange snapdragons — perform no function for selection to preserve, then God Himself would have to intervene to help yellow become magenta and vice versa."
- The Majestic Live Oak is Losing its Battle for Survival
- "An icon in American history and literature, broad-crowned live oaks thrive in open savannas but are dying off as they are crowded and overshadowed by the encroachment of taller trees."
- New York Botanical Garden and Pfizer Join to Look for Drugs in Plants
- "We want to know what builds plants,’ said Amy Litt, director of the genomics program, where researchers map plant DNA to chart the evolutionary differences between related flora. ‘It's entirely possible that we could come up with something that someone might use."
- Elixir of Youth from Madagascar Plant?
- "The cream, Sublimage, has its origins in the northern extremity of Madagascar from whence, almost a decade ago, Ormancey received a tip-off about a species of vanilla tree bearing an amazing, life-giving fruit, of which only 13 specimens remained."
- Who Profits from "Useful" Plants?
- "This is the silent plunder of natural resources from developing countries. Here we have a large multinational taking out a patent on a plant that grows naturally in a part of Africa and claiming it is their invention. Now the company is making a fortune selling it to the mass market, but the Tanzania communities that live in these regions will not receive one penny."
- Popularity of Natural Products Destroys Natural Places
- "The lucrative rooibos tea industry, thought to be environmentally-friendly because it is based on an indigenous species, is devastating South Africa's globally-important plant life."
- Do Birds Chose Herbs to Protect Their Nests?
- "If the fresh herbs and plant materials that parent birds bring into the nest have a sufficient concentration of antimicrobial compounds, they could protect the nestlings from harmful bacteria."
- Beautiful Flowers, the Shaman, and the Harvard Professor
- "So, Western medicine, with its expensive machinery and sophisticated scientists, has finally figured out what DaBuWan (the Suriname shaman) and his peers knew long ago. But how did they know it?"
- Folk Remedy Really Does Repel Mosquitos
- "We actually identified naturally occurring chemicals in the plant responsible for this activity."
- What Happens When You Mess With Symbiotic Pollination Relationships?
- "With as many as 70% of plant species dependent on animal pollinators and at least 82 mammalian pollinator species and 103 bird pollinator species considered threatened or extinct, this is sobering news."
- Wildlife Corridors Benefit Plants As Well As Animals
- "Habitat fragmentation poses a widespread threat to biodiversity by disrupting the dispersal of organisms."
- Dioecious Species Crowd Out Monoecious Relatives
- "Historical records show that, over the last 40 years, the males and females are rapidly displacing the hermaphrodites and moving south."
- Common Western Weed Kills Competition
- "…spotted knapweed - doesn't take over outside of its native ecology just by being leaner - it's also meaner."
- Healthy Mangroves Protect Human Communities
- "Places that had healthy coral reefs and intact mangroves, which act as natural buffers, were less badly hit by the tsunami."
- Common Introduced Weed Threatens Hardwood Forests
- "Maples, ashes and other hardwood trees are being harmed by an invasive weed that indirectly slows their growth to about one-tenth the normal speed, scientists say."
- Wild American Chestnuts Discovered
- "It is a rare opportunity to see an entire stand, albeit a small one, of American chestnut trees, many of which are in the forest canopy."
- Loss of Pollinators Especially Hard on Plants in Biological Hotspots
- "Species in species-rich regions face two challenges that increase the risk of extinction: habitat destruction, which is occurring at alarming rates in the tropics, and reduced pollinator activity."
- Cycads and Weevils: a 300 Million Year Symbiotic Relationship
- "This age-old plant reproduction system beats all records of longevity and achieves a 100% fertility rate."
- As Cottonwoods Go, So Goes the Valley
- "Human development alters ecosystem and cottonwoods are the indicator"
- Can the Common Sweetgum Fight Avian Flu?
- "One of the most common trees in North America provides ingredient for Tamiflu"
- More Arctic Plant Species Than Ever Imagined
- "Similar adaptations mask true diversity of plant life."
- Plant Collectors Push Evolutionary Changes
- "Commercial collecting of wild plants in the Himalayas becomes unnatural selection."
- Zoo Horticulture Consulting & Design
- "Specialist in zoo and aquarium exhibit landscapes"
- Using Plants To Control Plants
- "Some plants are biologically capable of eliminating other plants. That's sparked interest in using them for weed control."
- Play With The Spider
- "A fantastic interactive site where you can manipulate and play with a spider"
- Today's Plant Photo
- "UBC Botanical Garden's Picture-A-Day site"
Copyright © 2010 Rob Halpern. All rights reserved.
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