A seed is sown, a lesson is learnt

Life is all about learning lessons. And here on the Science Lite desk we have just learnt a very valuable one.

Never try to impress someone with your insight into evolution and the natural world with a quote if that quote – and this is the important bit - comes from the film Jurassic Park.

How and why we got ourselves into the predicament is far too cumbersome to go into – let us just say it ended with the following conversational gambit.

Editor: “…amazing – and it was all down to some ants.” Science Lite: “It’s like they say – life will find a way” Editor: “…Quite. Isn’t that a quote from…It is, isn’t it – it’s a Jeff Goldblum quote from Jurassic Park.” Science Lite: “Yes…erm, but I guess, I mean – he should know. He was once turned into a fly after all.”

With the power of hindsight, trying to lend gravitas to an ill-advised quote using the plot from the film The Fly only served to make things much worse. So bad in fact that our Editor punished us by making us write this month’s Science Lite about the incident.

So, without further ado – let us regale you with a tale most peculiar. A tale of mystery hotspots, hungry ants and an unpronounceable word.

The Cape region of South Africa is a puzzle. You see - it has too many plants, too many by far. Its wind currents, rainfall patterns and latitude mean the region should have a relatively limited number of plant species, yet it is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Why would this be so? Well, after a paper in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability asked just that a couple of Australian researchers think they have the answer. It turns out it is all down to a spot of expert gardening by the humble ant.

This is one of those spectacular examples of symbiosis that just highlight the amazing way that, and we can’t quite believe we are saying this, life can find a way.

Professor Jonathan Majer – one of the researchers whose evidence showed a "great role for tiny players" – explains how the process works. “Ants pick up a seed often by grabbing the elaiosome - a fleshy appendage that attracts the ants - take it back to their nest and feed on it.”

As the ants chomp away at this specialised appendage they discard the seed, which ordinarily survives either in the nest or in the soil around the nest. This takes seeds away from the parent plants, ensuring they don't compete, and shields them from predators and scrubland fire. Apart from this protection, it may be that the ant nest is also richer in nutrients because of faecal material and waste.

So basically to adapt to nutrient poor conditions the sneaky plant has smuggled its seed into the perfect environment for it to grow – all for the cost of a bit of tasty elaiosome. What a bargain. And indeed what a result – it is estimated that those industrious ant have doubled the plant diversification of the region.

As all good discoveries should have – this process of course need a suitable name. And what a humdinger this one has – the dispersal of seeds by certain ant species is known as myrmecochory.

That’s myreme…myohmyohme …myrummycary…my…oh for goodness sake – I bet Goldblum didn’t have this trouble.