Greens worried over rising footfalls in Lalbagh

The increasing number of visitors to the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens during flower shows has become a cause of worry for the greens and some officials from the Horticulture department who are now contemplating a change in the venue. 



The Mysore Horticulture Society, the organiser of the Republic Day flower show at Lalbagh, may be hoping of a good profit by the end of the flower show this time, but many of them are of the opinion that the show should be stopped at the historic garden  for its good. The Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, with a history of over 250 years, is home to several rare plants and bird species and is the most preferred destiny for bird watchers in the concrete jungle that Bangalore has become over the years. The place, a favourite among morning walkers and joggers is now a subject of discussion due to the nuisance caused by the public at the flower show.

“It has turned a nuisance not only because of the increasing number of visitors, but also due to the garbage strewn everywhere, around the garden. There should be a change in the venue,” says Suresh Kumar, a botanist who visits the show every year.

Many bird watchers and nature lovers too have been voicing the same concern. Dr M B Krishna,  a City-based ornithologist says, “Let them shift it to other agriculture or horticulture areas. There will be better participation by the people. The number of people visiting this place is alarming. On January 26, we heard as many as 2.5 lakh visitors came to Lalbagh and this place is not designed to take this load,” he said.

M Sunil Kumar, an environmentalist, expressing his shock over the sea of people, who thronged the garden, and the piles of garbage around it, said that shows of these kinds should not happen in Lalbagh and the place designated as botanical garden, should be retained as one.

“It is not an amusement park. It is shocking to see the historic place, including the rock (Peninsular Gneiss of the region, dated 2,500 to 3,400 million years) is full of litter,” he said. Even some of the Horticulture department officials, on condition of anonymity, shared similar view saying that the show should be held at more than one place - by identifying a few BBMP parks.

Lalbagh officials said that more than six lakh people visited the park during this flower show. While 2.3 lakh people visited on January 26, it was 1.2 lakh last Sunday.

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Flesh-eating plant traps worms with sticky underground leaves

Philcoxia couldn’t look more unassuming. It’s a small herb that lives in Brazil’s Campos Rupestres region, a sparse plateau of rocky outcrops and white sands. All you’d see of it are a handful of twigs sticking out from the grains, topped with small purple flowers and even smaller leaves. You wouldn’t think that it’s the type of plant that can kill animals.

To find Philcoxia’s grisly secret, Caio Pereira had to look underground. The plant biologist from Unicamp, Brazil, found that the plant traps and digests  tiny worms with sticky underground leaves.

Plants have evolved to eat animals at least six times, and over 600 species of them now do so. They catch their prey with slippery water-filled pitchers, fast-snapping traps, sticky leaves and sucking bladders. Their strategies are diverse, but they all tend to grow in areas that are poor in nutrients. For example, familiar species like the Venus’ fly trap and the sundew live in bogs and swamps. In such inhospitable environments, these plants supplement their supplies of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients by feasting on the flesh of animals.

Philcoxia is no different. When Peter Taylor described the plants in 2000, he noted that they have several features that resemble those of other meat-eating species. Its mountain home is poor in nutrients and frequently starved of rain. Its roots are unusually sparse and lack the fungal partners that help other plants to survive. And it has tiny underground leaves – just a millimetre wide and coated with sticky glands, of the type found in other carnivorous plants.

There was just one problem. There were no signs of captured animals, or bodies nearby. If Philcoxia ate animals, it wasn’t doing so obviously. In 2007, Peter Fritsch found a possible answer. He noticed nematode worms stuck to the underground leaves, and reasoned that the plant was trapping and digesting them. Pereira, working with Fritsch, has now confirmed this hypothesis.

He found that Philcoxia’s underground leaves are littered with the bodies of dead nematodes. To check that the deaths aren’t coincidental, Pereira bred nematodes so that their bodies were full of nitrogen-15 – a rare and heavier-than-usual version of the element. He then “fed” the nematodes to Philcoxia. Two days later, Pereira found that 15 percent of the nitrogen-15 in the worms has been incorporated into the plant’s leaves. It was clear proof that Philcoxia was digesting the nematodes and absorbing the remains into their bodies.
Many meat-eating plants digest their prey with high concentrations of enzymes called phosphatases. Philcoxia does so too. Pereira found loads of the enzymes on Philcoxia’s leaves, which means that the plants are probably digesting the nematodes directly.

Pereira still wants to find out how Philcoxia lures its prey towards its traps. But for the moment, he has shown that its diet of worms greatly raises the level of nitrogen in its leaves, boosting it even above the levels of neighbouring plants that aren’t carnivorous.

That’s interesting, because some scientists have suggested that eating animals is a relatively inefficient way of coping with nutrient-poor environments. This would explain why carnivorous plants are relatively rare. But Philcoxia clearly shows that a fleshy menu can provide more nutrients the strategies of other plants in the same conditions.

Indeed, Philcoxia’s murderous habits suggest that we may have underestimated the true number of meat-eating plants in the world. After all, if this rare species feeds on microscopic prey using hidden traps, perhaps other plants do so too. As Mark Chase wrote a few years back, “we may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think”.

Reference: Pereira, Almenara, Winter, Fritsch, Lambers & Oliveira. 2011. Underground leaves of Philcoxia trap and digest nematodes. PNAS http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1114199109

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Scientists discover lizards on verge of leap from egg-laying to live births

Scientists have caught the process of evolution in action as a species of Australian lizard abandons egg-laying for live births. The variety of skink, which is snake-like with four tiny legs, has been found laying eggs along the coast of New South Wales. However, the same yellow-bellied three-toed lizard living in the colder mountainous region is giving birth to offspring like a mammal does.

Rare study: The Australian lizard has been found laying eggs along the warm coast of New South Wales while the same species gives birth to live young in the colder mountainous region 

There are only two other types of modern reptiles which use both types of reproduction methods – another skink species and a European lizard.One in five snakes and lizards gives birth to live young, with records showing nearly a hundred reptile lineages have changed from egg-laying in the past.

Study co-author James Stewart, a biologist at East Tennessee State University, in America, told National Geographic that the discovery provided scientists with a rare opportunity. ‘By studying differences among populations that are in different stages of this process, you can begin to put together what looks like the transition from one [birth style] to the other,’ he said. Mr Stewart said the transformation could be linked to how newborns get nourishment. Or it could be a way of protecting the young in harsher climates.

Baby mammals are fed via a placenta which is connects the foetus to the ovary wall. Through this it can breathe and pass back waste. Embryos of egg-laying species get nutrients from the yolk while absorbing calcium from the porous shell, which also protects them from the external environment.However, some fish and reptiles are using a mix of both birthing styles.

Mothers form an egg which she keeps inside her body until the last stages. The shells thin, allowing the embryos to breathe until birth – but, according to scientists, this poses a nourishment problem, as it contains less calcium. This discovery prompted Mr Stewart and his colleagues to investigate the nutrient issue in the structure and the chemistry of the Australian lizard’s uterus.

Full Story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308772/Evolution-action-Scientists-discover-lizards-verge-leap-egg-laying-live-births.html