Botanists have known for years that some plants send out distress calls when attacked by herbivorous insects such as aphids, and these calls prompt neighbors to release volatile chemicals that attract other insects in the area to attack the invaders. Are. This feedback brings mutual benefits. This helps attack the plant in advance. And it also prevents the spread of infection.
At least some of these calls for help traveling underground are also apparent, but the details were unclear. Now, a study published in Ecology Letters by Emilio Guerrieri of the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Turin has shown that these subterranean cries for help are made using a molecule, L-dopa, that attracted star attention in the 1990s. gained fame as A film called “Jagruti”.
“The Awakening” is based on cases described by Oliver Sacks, a psychiatrist living in New York, in his own, non-fiction, book of that name. Sachs used L-DOPA, a precursor to several so-called neurotransmitters, including dopamine and epinephrine, to treat the victims of encephalitis lethargica, a mysterious disease that spread around the world in the second and third decades of the 20th century. carries intermediate signals. Encephalitis lethargy caused catatonia. L-dopa allowed the victims to wake up, although only for short periods of time.
Dr Guerrieri worked with broad-bean plants, pea aphids and wasps aphidius irvy, which lay their eggs in aphids (see picture). Previous studies had shown that broad beans could recruit neighbors as allies, even when covered with plastic bags – hence the belief that the signals involved were subterranean. But no one knew the recruiting chemical. By growing the beans hydroponically instead of in soil, he and his colleagues were able to find out.
They picked 80 bean plants, 40 of them infested with aphids two weeks after germination, and then, three days later, tested samples of each one’s hydroponic solution using a process called bioassay-guided fractionation. The main difference they found turned out to be in the levels of L-DOPA. And when, it turned out, they raised more batches of beans and fed half of each batch synthetic L-DOPA, they found, first, that those receiving the molecule, but not others, were actually were attractive A erviAnd, second, that these plants produced more than the others of three particular chemicals that previous work has suggested are wasp-attracting substances.
That L-DOPA plays a role in communication in species (albeit a distinct one) as diverse as humans and bean plants is intriguing. But it’s also useful information. What works for broad beans probably works for a range of other crops. And L-DOPA is easy and cheap to manufacture. So it may make sense to add it to irrigation systems, thereby discouraging aphids by recruiting wasps to the cause.
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© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. Original content can be found at www.economist.com
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