About the episode
There are plants with thorns and plants with spines. A thorn is a type of adapted twig of a plant, but with a sharp point. A stinger is a type of skin growth on a plant, short and pointed, with a hair-like tip. The latter is what roses have: prickles, not thorns.
Well, plants have stolons for different reasons. They can be a defense mechanism against herbivores or other plant species, but they can also be used to store water, or help the plant gain traction when climbing.
Catalysts have evolved in species that are distantly related, or even unrelated. This is called convergent evolution. The same function appears in different, unrelated groups. Think of the wings of different types of birds, but also bats and flying squirrels.
What exactly does this mean for stimulating plants? Could there be the same genetic mechanism behind this? And if you wanted to grow plants without stimuli, could you use this knowledge to do so?
Over the past 400 million years, catalysts have come and gone in different species. The process behind them is similar, as extensive genetic research in the eggplant, potato and tomato families has shown.
A family of genes called LONELY GUY acts as a kind of neural trait manager in many species. This is what has been turned on and off by triggers, so to speak, in different species over millions of years.
This is not only important knowledge for breeders, but it also shows how convergent evolution can work. It is not an ancient ancestor from which all species with motives emerged, but an ancient genetic mechanism.
Read more about the research here: Scientists have traced the origins of thorny roses, solving a 400-million-year-old mystery.
