What if you were placed in an island with two family members and me (stranger)? What if we all could not find food to eat on this very treacherous island? What if we were stuck in the molecular biology class without anything to eat for days and weeks? Well, we EAT each other. So the question is WHO? We eat the stranger! (Fresh meat)!
This is Aphids' logic here! Aphids are small plant lice living on plants. They are equipped with an intricate "sucking" mouthparts called stylets. Using stylets aphids are able to leech the plants' fluid content inside the phloem. (which is the plants' vessels).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24513-zoologger-baby-vampire-aphids-drink-parents-blood.html#.UnXQtZHHgts
This is Aphids' logic here! Aphids are small plant lice living on plants. They are equipped with an intricate "sucking" mouthparts called stylets. Using stylets aphids are able to leech the plants' fluid content inside the phloem. (which is the plants' vessels).
Now the interesting part? what aphids do when they lack food? A research was conducted at Harpers Adams university in the UK. They placed three aphids (a mother and two of her "kids") with an unrelated unfortunate aphid in a low food environment (damaged plant) and closely "stalked" their behavior. They noticed that the juveniles were choosy about who they attack. "They were more likely to target unrelated insects, which makes sense: unrelated aphids are competitors and it might be advantageous to attack them regardless of the food situation" If you were wondering How do aphids eat they prey? They suck their blood to death using stylets. (vampires, they exist!)
There is a twist in the second part of the research! On a side note aphids reproduce asexually (by consecutive mitosis division) and all members of a colony share the same genes! (clones of each others).
Then, the team thought "lets put the same colony in a low food environment and see if they eat each other". Well, they did. Weirdly the small aphids eagerly devoured their mother (yum) with no to little resistance as opposed to the stranger aphid. The team concluded that clones "may be willing to let their fellows eat them because, by doing so, they are ensuring that at least some of the clones will survive to reproduce and pass on their shared genes" and for the why the mom must be the victim? the team noticed that for aphids its more important for juveniles to survive. Think about it yourself: Your mother will allow you to eat her to survive. (Pure logic !!! Maybe not, good we are not aphids!)
For more information check the link below:
Your blogs are always so out there! But that's good, it keeps things interesting! So I'm a bit obsessed with bugs since I'll be taking entomology next semester. I guess it makes sense that the stranger would be eaten first when given no alternatives, and in the event that there is no strangers, young aphids prey on their own mother. Considering these are bugs, it seems as though this is actually a pretty complex event. A mother's sacrifice isn't always recognized in animals other than vertebrates, so this is an interesting study!
ReplyDeleteAh vampire lice! I've never heard of Aphids before now and I'm wondering why, these little guys are interesting! In my undergrad I took an animal behavior course that discussed the same type of 'evolutionary behavior' seen here; it is really neat to see how certain insects can mold and adapt their behavior based on their external environment.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing! I knew vampires existed ever since watching Twilight!
ReplyDeleteAnyways, it completely makes since though. The stranger was outnumbered and had to be the one to go. It also makes sense that the mom would prefer to give up her life if it meant that her kids would live with the possibility of reproducing in the future. Kind of weird that the kids didn't even think twice for their mom versus the stranger. O_o