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<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">NY Times:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">January 26, 2010</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">Observatory<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite"><B>Plant Switches Pollinators When
Caterpillars Strike</B><BR><B></B></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">By <A title=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/henry_fountain/index.html?inline=nyt-per href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/henry_fountain/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><SPAN></SPAN>HENRY
FOUNTAIN</A><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">It is not a perfect situation, the
relationship between coyote tobacco and hawkmoths.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">Sure, the hawkmoth does a good job of
pollinating the plant, Nicotiana attenuata, which grows in the Western
United States and flowers at night. But the hawkmoth has this habit of
leaving behind its eggs, which develop into caterpillars that like nothing
better than to eat the plant.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">So N. attenuata strikes back in a novel way,
according to scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in
Jena, Germany. As they <A title=http://www.cell.com/current-biology/ href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/">describe in Current Biology</A>,
it shifts the time of its flowering to mornings and attracts a different
pollinator, a hummingbird.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">"Nobody had actually noticed this before,"
said Ian T. Baldwin, director of the institute and senior author of the
Current Biology paper. He said Danny Kessler, the lead author, was taking
photographs one day of a plant that happened to be attacked by caterpillars.
"Out of the blue, the flowers opened in the morning," he
said.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">Munching caterpillars produce oral
secretions that "activate a whole series of defense responses," Dr. Baldwin
said, including the production of toxins and protease inhibitors that
decrease the caterpillars' digestive ability. The change in flowering time,
he said, "is a fourth major group of events that are activated by
caterpillar attack."<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite">By shifting pollinators, the plant reduces
the damage from hawkmoths. But why doesn't it eliminate hawkmoth
pollination? Probably because the hawkmoth is a better pollinator than
hummingbirds - it travels farther and visits more plants. "The tobacco plant
gets superior pollination services out of the hawkmoth," Dr. Baldwin
said.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite"><BR><A title=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html">Copyright
2010</A> The New York Times Company</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV><BR></DIV><X-SIGSEP><PRE>--
</PRE></X-SIGSEP>
<DIV>Monarch
Watch<BR>monarch@ku.edu<BR>http://www.MonarchWatch.org/<BR>Dplex-L: send
message "info Dplex-L" to Listproc@ku.edu<BR>1-888-TAGGING (toll-free!) -or-
1-785-864 4441<BR>University of Kansas<BR>1200 Sunnyside Avenue<BR>Lawrence, KS
66045-7534<BR>Create, Conserve and Protect Monarch Habitats</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Laurie Davies Adams<BR>Executive
Director<BR><B>Pollinator Partnership </B><BR>423 Washington Street, 5th
floor<BR>San Francisco, CA
94111<BR>415-362-1137<BR>LDA@pollinator.org</FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" color=#0000ff size=4 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="14"><B><A href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></B></FONT><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"></B><BR><A href="http://www.nappc.org/">www.nappc.org</A><BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 face="Gill Sans MT" color=#000000 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><B><I>National Pollinator Week is June 21-27, 2010. <BR>Beecome
involved at <A href="http://www.pollinator.org/">www.pollinator.org</A></I></FONT></B></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>