Butterflies tobacco plants

To reduce damage caused by caterpillars, a species of tobacco plants converts time to flowering from night to day.

Nicotiana attenuata tobacco flower. Photo: hopibotanicals.com.

Nicotiana attenuata is a tobacco plant distributed in the western United States and blooms at night. Hawk butterflies are their powerful assistants. However, hawk butterflies have a very bad habit: lay eggs on trees after pollination. The eggs then develop into worms and eat the leaves of the plant.

So the worm plants attacked by flowers in the daytime to attract the attention of hummingbirds - a bird that also does pollination, the New York Times led the study of scientists. from Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology Research, Germany.

"No one has ever discovered plants change the time to bloom to prevent animals," said Dr Ian T. Baldwin, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

Baldwin said Danny Kessler, the lead researcher, captured pictures of a flowering Nicotiana attenuata in the morning after a caterpillar attack.

Deeply attacked tobacco plants bloom in the daytime to attract hummingbirds' attention.Photo: hopibotanicals.com.

According to Baldwin, substances that caterpillars secrete activate a series of tobacco plant defense reactions. For example, they produce toxins and protease inhibitors - proteolytic enzyme groups - to reduce digestibility of worms. The change in flowering time is also one of the plant's reactions.

By changing the flowering time, tobacco plants reduce the amount of damage that caterpillars cause. But why don't they completely prevent pollination of hawk butterflies? Baldwin thinks that hawkish butterflies are better able to pollinate than hummingbirds because they fly farther and land on more trees.