Prologue:
“The earth has music for those who listen”,
I felt like a
child in pursuit of a butterfly, while penning down this article. This blog is dedicated to Mr.Rangasamy
(my biology teacher) who instilled me the hymns of nature. To the man, who
taught us more than science.
"In the
shroud of the blue sky, the smoky clouds were hanging in there trying to
embezzle the nature’s beauty. The canopies of trees were the able students to
their masters sitting in heaven, brushing aside to nod their heads in acknowledgement.
The air was scented with lilies, which could program the performance code in
most primitives of this planet. Amidst all, she emerged from the golden ray of
the sun, with her head pointing down. She unfolded her wings, which shone and
vibrated, to let her muscles warm in the morning light. She loved sex more than
her mate and lived in isolation all her life as a queen. The solitary wasp, the
queen launched herself beside me, to hunt for its prey.
The wasp
was few inches next to me, having landed on a huge hackberry leaf; it was waiting
to pound on the caterpillar that was feeding the leaf. Perhaps, it’s a wonder that,
how could a wasp far across could track her prey without radar. To unveil the
mystery, the Mother Nature has the most intriguing answers to such thought
provoking questions. There are approximately 300,000 plants and 900,000 species
of insects, of which most eat plants. In this scenario, most plants would have
been chewed up by them, but still we find green foliage encompassing us. Plants
have evolved defenses in the name of chemical warfare against such attackers.
Plants need
to stand their ground when pests attack and there‘s no turning back. They can’t
scream for help, but they produce chemicals (green leafy volatiles) which can
easily evaporate and attracts its bodyguards. The process is quite simple and
symbiotic; the communication is so effective that the bodyguards hop on the
leaves to dine on the plant eaters. A distress signal from one plant aids its
neighbors, which can have a drastic impact on agriculture. This defense
evolution of plants is significant in understanding their communication with
other lives.
Plants took
at least a few million years to manifest the several thousand chemicals in
trillion ways to produce synergistic results which are quite complex. If the
evolution has progressed exponentially, then our agriculture would have hit
boom. All plants would have been literally kicking out every possible predator
on earth; no pesticides and no crop destruction. Conversely, this never occurred;
some plants were vulnerable. To understand this, we need a leaf from Darwin’s book
‘Origin of Species’.
Darwin emphasizes on the underlying concept,
i.e. those individuals that are more responsive to change, can survive by means
of evolution. It is a common misnomer that only the ‘strongest’ or ‘fittest’
survive; it is an ecological niche. For a population to survive, it needs both
strong and weak to thrive. Stronger ones can’t survive without bullying the
weaker ones. Just imagine, if only the strong or fittest survived, we would be
rubbing shoulders with a population of Einstein and Muhammad Ali. The evolution
doesn’t work like that; we have weaklings like apples which could be easily
plucked and a pineapple with prickly thorns.
So, some
plants can cry for help by means of loud signals, while others only whisper.
Individuals which are termed as ‘fit’ in one particular environment need not be
the same in another habitat. Cactus can survive in scorching sun but when you
put the same in the poles, the rules of the game change. Survival is not just
battling the weather and predators; it’s a ticket that Mother Nature throws to
all. Every organism tries to increase its odds in seizing the opportunity. It’s
no wonder that plants have evolved so much, leaving mankind far behind the
race. If at all the mankind, the so called superior race of this planet have reproduced
fitter ones, we wouldn’t be walking to our refrigerators to grab the leftovers and
diet coke.
Now you can
appreciate the signals sent by hackberry leaves, inviting the Queen (the wasp)
to chew out the caterpillar. The chemical signals produced by them are in the
order of few parts per billion, but still they exert significant bio activity.
Normally when we fall ill, the doctor scribbles antibiotics and few vitamin
pills for the next 15 days, so that the pharmacist pays for the doctor’s
foreign trip. The antibiotics that we
take, try to control the symptoms without curing. So, most medications are
excreted back to the environment chemically unchanged. It’s said that most
viruses and bacteria have evolved (except we humans) by gaining resistance to
most drugs.
The lives
of plants are extraordinary; with so many untold stories and process that are
performed in loops remain hidden. What we see is staggering beauty, but we fail
to appreciate its taciturn approach to most staggering issues. We act as
charlatans with trivial things indoctrinated to awe at nature’s fecundity and
aggressiveness. We aren’t alone, but with a superior race to maintain weave the
sense of uncertainty and heal us when we fall sick.
OMG!!! Wait
a minute; I could feel something moving in my jeans. Is a wasp sneaking in,
that’s the last thing I needed. Damn, it was my phone crying, at the signal
from my queen (not the wasp, but my female friend!!!).
Queen: Just
finished my class, I’ll join u in 15 mins
Me: no
worries, I m already in the park waiting for you for the past 30 mins.
Queen: I m
so sorry to keep u waiting. What did you do so long?
Me:
ahhhh!!! To be precise, I was missing you!! "
Courtesy:
