This is the way Venus Fahdan knows that it is time to close

As far as plants go, Flytraps is very hard -line. After attracting its prey with the smell of fruits and smashing it into its leaves, the flying slowly digests the insect for 5 to 12 days, which led to the launch of an empty peel after its meal. But the accurate molecular mechanism behind this behavior was a mystery of scientists – so far.

in Nature Communications Japanese researchers state today that the Ion channel at the base of hairy flytrap sensors acts as an amplifier to adopt a plant alarm to close its trap. To be clear, scientists had a decent idea of ​​the quality of the distinction between Venus Fatean between real prey and wrong signs, as well as dissection of small hair sensors that discover these signals. However, it was not clear how a plant in which there was no nerve system converts physical stimulation into a biological braid.

History of fly science

Looking at the strange charisma, it is not surprising that Venus Flytrap receives special attention from the scientific community. For example, a 2016 study Confirm that Venus Flytrap “account” the number of stimuli it receives His trap is closed only when the stimuli passes a certain threshold. last Paper from 2020 Written by Herrako Soda, the main author of the new study, revealed that the fluctuations in calcium concentrations were the short -term memory bank.

Rich literature helped researchers determine where scientists were lacking in understanding the Al -Zahra team. For the new study, the team designed a flight with Florestant protein to record a different signal movement within the factory.

When the factory gently bends, they noticed a rise in the concentration of calcium ions, as well as a small electrical signal. On the other hand, the strongest batch sparked the largest reaction of the transfer of calcium ions and electrical signals throughout the entire plant, according to the paper.

“Our approach enabled us to imagine the moment when physical motivation is converted into a biological sign in living plants,” said Soda, the biologist from the University of Saitama in Japan, in Release.

Sensitive system

A closer review of the signals revealed that sensory hair is actually consisting of two different types of cells. Elderly cells have turned physical stimuli into calcium signals, while adjacent cells and oceans that carry these signs throughout the plant – but only if the initial incentive is strong enough.

To find out what will happen without these cells, the researchers destroyed the bad cells on the Flytrap hair and compared their responses to the flying responses. There was some contrast on any side of the hair that was disabled, but in general, flying with flawed bad cells was less likely to interact with stimuli, including a colony of ants that scientists were walking near flying.

Soda said the new work shows the advanced and wonderful nature of aviation biology, which is discovered “to spoil, barely sponsored contacts.” Moreover, these mechanical improvement systems – the factory’s ability to respond to touch – may be “shared” outside of aviation, indicating that there are many plants more than we could imagine.