A record-breaking pollen catapult

Edwards, J. A.; Whitaker, Dwight; Klionsky, Sarah; Laskowski, Marta

doi:10.1038/435164a

Cited by 98 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…8 Our measurement of 2.65 m/s reflects an amazing consistency given that we were working with different clones in different laboratories. These measurements show Catasetum to be capable of some of the fastest velocities, speeds and accelerations within the plant kingdom and the speed compares favorably to the figure of 3.1 m/s given for the stamens of Cornus canadensis as measured by Edwards et al 3 The mechanism for communicating the stimuli signal within Catasetum is still to be determined but the rapid response of genera such as Dionea has been suggested by Trebacz et al to be due to an action potential involving CA 2+ , Clˉ and K + . 9 A fertile course of inquiry would be to accurately record the moment of contact between a probe and the antennae, the moment of eruption and factor the speed of the signal through the antennae to the area from which the pollinium emerges.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…9 However our figure for acceleration was far less than the 24,000m/s 2 recorded by Edwards et al for the accelerating stamens of Cornus canadensis. 3 Force. In order to calculate the force the pollinium was exerting it was necessary to find its weight.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 It is only recently that high speed videography has been utilized to capture the most rapid of these movements with image capture rates at high as 10,000 frames per second being utilized to measure plant movements as rapid as 3.1 m/s in the pollen launch of Cornus canadensis. 3 The family Orchidaceae is one of the two largest families of angiosperms, with over 750 genera and over 19,000 species. These are spread worldwide, with species on every continent except Antarctica.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Darwin's bee-trap: The kinetics of Catasetum, a new world orchid

Nicholson

Bales²,

Palmer-Fortune³

et al. 2008

Plant Signaling & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The orchid genera Catasetum employs a hair-trigger activated, pollen release mechanism, which forcibly attaches pollen sacs onto foraging insects in the New World tropics. This remarkable adaptation was studied extensively by Charles Darwin and he termed this rapid response "sensitiveness." Using high speed video cameras with a frame speed of 1000 fps, this rapid release was filmed and from the subsequent footage, velocity, speed, acceleration, force and kinetic energy were computed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Darwin's bee-trap: The kinetics of Catasetum, a new world orchid

Nicholson

Bales²,

Palmer-Fortune³

et al. 2008

Plant Signaling & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast to these active mechanisms, the N. gracilis lid movement requires neither mechanical preloading nor physiological activation. The fastest reported plant movements-up to 170 ms −1 in extreme cases-are catapult-based mechanisms for seed dispersal (5,39,40), spore release (6), and pollen transfer (7,41). These superfast motions invariably rely on irreversible, singleshot mechanisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanism for rapid passive-dynamic prey capture in a pitcher plant

Bauer

Paulin

Robert

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Plants use rapid movements to disperse seed, spores, or pollen and catch animal prey. Most rapid-release mechanisms only work once and, if repeatable, regaining the prerelease state is a slow and costly process. We present an encompassing mechanism for a rapid, repeatable, passive-dynamic motion used by a carnivorous pitcher plant to catch prey. Nepenthes gracilis uses the impact of rain drops to catapult insects from the underside of the canopy-like pitcher lid into the fluid-filled trap below. High-speed video and laser vibrometry revealed that the lid acts as a torsional spring system, driven by rain drops. During the initial downstroke, the tip of the lid reached peak velocities similar to fast animal motions and an order of magnitude faster than the snap traps of Venus flytraps and catapulting tentacles of the sundew Drosera glanduligera. In contrast to these active movements, the N. gracilis lid oscillation requires neither mechanical preloading nor metabolic energy, and its repeatability is only limited by the intensity and duration of rainfall. The underside of the lid is coated with friction-reducing wax crystals, making insects more vulnerable to perturbations. We show that the trapping success of N. gracilis relies on the combination of material stiffness adapted for momentum transfer and the antiadhesive properties of the wax crystal surface. The impact-driven oscillation of the N. gracilis lid represents a new kind of rapid plant movement with adaptive function. Our findings establish the existence of a continuum between active and passive trapping mechanisms in carnivorous plants.

show abstract

“…Ren (2010) suggested that there are four main types of stamen movement: cascade movement (Weigend and Gottschling, 2006); quick and explosive movement (Taylor et al, 2006); simultaneous and slow movement (Azuma et al, 2005); and stimulated movement (Lechowski and Bialczyk, 1992;Lebuhn and Anderson, 1994). Stamen movement can affect the reproductive biology of fl owering plants because this mechanism forces the visitors to enter fl owers and may alter the interaction plant-pollinator (Schlindwein and Wittmann, 1997;Edwards et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2006;Ren, 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%