Twisting upwardly on trees and other plants—along with houses and even lampposts—vines are a wonder of nature.
Twisting upwardly on trees and other plants—along with houses and even lampposts—vines are a wonder of nature. However, their marvels mask their parasitic behavior: in attaching to other life forms, vines block sunlight necessary for growth and strangle their hosts, preventing the flow of water and other nutrients.
While these threats were widely known, less clear is what gives vines their searching, attaching, and climbing capabilities.
An international team of scientists has now unlocked a formula that enables vines to search for and attach to host plants—rapid elongation, directional movement, and the production of specialized contacting cells—and identified the gene family that engineers this formula.
Read more at: New York University
A climbing vine in Oaxaca, Mexico. (Photo Credit: Lena Hunt/New York University)
