homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Venus flytrap with no brain or nervous system senses prey with short-memory trick

Calcium flowing through tiny hairs of the plant's leaves determine when the Venus flytrap closes its jaw.

Tibi Puiu
October 16, 2020 @ 7:08 pm

share Share

 The trap of a Venus fly trap, showing trigger hairs. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The Venus flytrap is famous for its unusual ability to catch and digest insects and other small animals. And although it has no brain or nervous system to speak of, its behavior is strikingly intelligent. The carnivorous plant has tiny hairs that line its maw, which act like motion sensors, detecting when a struggling insect is ripe for the picking so it can close its jaws and ramp up digestion. But if raindrops or other false alarms trigger the hairs, the trap remains open thereby preserving energy.

This remarkable ability is owed to the plant’s short-term memory. Previous research shows that Venus flytraps can effectively ‘count’ to five. For instance, two touches of the hairs within a 20-second window of time cause the trap to shut while five touches boost the production of digestive enzymes.

How the plant records these instances of touch has so far been a mystery, but a new study published this week in the journal Nature Plantsmay shed some light.

Poke this plant and you’ll be in for a surprise

According to researchers at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Ozaki, Japan, Venus flytraps owe their short-term memory to calcium signaling. This is a hypothesis that had been suggested before but it is only now that calcium’s role has been confirmed thanks to genetic engineering.

Venus flytraps were engineered to produce a fluorescent protein that glows green when it’s exposed to calcium. When the plants’ sensory hairs were gently stimulated, the base of the hairs began glowing. The glow quickly spread through the entire leaf before starting to fade. When the hair was touched a second time within 30 seconds or so, the leaves lit even brighter. What’s more, the trap quickly snapped shut. Check out the amazing video below for this effect in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY_0tHojbPM&ab_channel=bradykelly

These experiments show that the flytrap’s short-memory is predicated on calcium levels in the plant’s leaves. When the calcium concentration in cells reaches a certain threshold, the trap closes.

“I tried so many experiments over two and a half years but all failed. The Venus flytrap was such an attractive system that I did not give up. I finally noticed that foreign DNA integrated with high efficiency into the Venus flytrap grown in the dark. It was a small but indispensable clue,” Hiraku Suda, the first author of the article, said in a statement.

Visualization of the changes in intracellular calcium concentration of the Venus flytrap. Credit: NIBB.

In the future, the Japanese researchers want to use the same method to study other aspects of the Venus flytrap’s behavior, such as the capturing of prey and digestion.

“This is the first step towards revealing the evolution of plant movement and carnivory, as well as the underlying mechanisms. Many plants and animals have interesting but unexplored biological peculiarities,” said Mitsuyasu Hasebe of the National Institute for Basic Biology.

share Share

Not Just Hunters: Wooden Tools Unearth the Sophisticated, Plant-Eating World of Early Humans

What if the Stone Age wasn't really about stone?

This is How Exercise Supercharges the Immune System Against Cancer

Exercise reshapes gut bacteria to supercharge immune response against tumors.

Scientists just figured out how to turn moon dirt into water and oxygen just using sunlight

Scientists find a way to turn moon regolith into water, air, and fuel…and that could change space travel.

AI-designed autonomous underwater glider looks like a paper airplane and swims like a seal

An MIT-designed system lets AI evolve new shapes for ocean-exploring robots.

Bees are facing a massive survival challenge. Could AI help them?

Our tiny friends are in trouble and it's because of us.

NASA finally figures out what's up with those "Mars spiders"

They're not actual spiders, of course, but rather strange geological features.

Cycling Is Four Times More Efficient Than Walking. A Biomechanics Expert Explains Why

The answer lies in the elegant biomechanics of how our bodies interact with this wonderfully simple machine.

We’re Starting to Sound Like ChatGPT — And We Don’t Even Realize It

Are chatbots changing our vocabulary? There's increasing evidence this is the case.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Just Flew Closer to the Sun Than Ever Before and the Footage is Breathtaking

Closest-ever solar images offer new insights into Earth-threatening space weather.

Scientists Just Showed How Alien Life Could Emerge in Titan's Methane Lakes

What if the ingredients of life could assemble on a methane world?