HI folks, Gus here, the African Plant Hunter. I'm gonna share with you a fact you probably didn't know: plants communicate with each other! I know - it's extraordinary - but it's true! Here's some evidence. Behind me these are mopane trees these big beautiful butterfly-leaf shape tree. Mopane trees are a staple food of elephants. They have a kind of symbiotic relationship with elephants: they actually need the elephants as it helps them to reproduce. But they don't want to be completely chowed by an elephant, so they've evolved a defense mechanism.
When an elephant comes along and starts browsing their leaves, the Mopane tree releases a tannin from its roots. It goes up into the leaves and makes the plant unpalatable. Remarkably mopane trees are able to communicate the fact that they are being browsed to neighboring trees. The neighboring trees release their tannins before they are browsed by the elephant. You can quite often see - and you can actually physically see this - when elephants are browsing, they'll come to a tree they'll start browsing then they move away from it.
Then they go to the next tree or they take one mouthful and then they're gone. It doesn't taste good. The way that mopane trees communicate with each other is using some kind of pheromone. The pheromone is airborne in the wind so they can't control the direction that it goes in. and it will move downwind. So what happens is, an elephant comes along, starts browsing on a mopane tree. The mopane tree releases pheromones to say to the other trees around it "whoa! We're under attack released tannin!" Tannin goes into the leaves. Then all the trees downwind of them release the tannin and become unpalatable to the elephant. So what is the elephant do? Well the elephant comes in from a downwind position and starts browsing upwind - because the trees can't communicate with each other upwind.
Pretty remarkable series of little micro adaptations over time! If ever there was evidence that plants can communicate with each other, this is categorically it! Thank you for watching that guys. If you don't know me I am Gus, the African Plant Hunter, and it's my mission in life to try to bring a little bit of awareness and knowledge around African plants to the rest of the world. If you do know me you'll probably recognize that I'm wearing a new shirt because it's 2019 and I think it's a new year and I get to wear a new shirt! This is gonna be very short because the thunder and lightning is about to come. Alright guys it's been great talking to you. I'll catch you later. Thank you! Please subscribe! Bye..
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