Each year, the agarwood tree, a sought-after source of medicines and perfumes that grows in the rainforests of southwest China, needs to solve a problem. The tree’s fruits mature during the hottest time of the year. As temperatures climb, the fruits split and the seeds hang from the fruit, where they can dry out in a matter of hours.
To meet their ultra-fast seed-dispersal needs, the trees have tricked a species of hornets (Vespa velutina) into becoming seed couriers, a new study suggests. The work, published today (June 30) in Current Biology, describes how the agarwood’s fruit mimic the odors released when the insects start feasting on agarwood leaves. The hornets are lured in by these odors to prey on the insects but encounter a seed instead.
Plants exploit animals’ senses and behavior for various reasons, says Simcha Lev-Yadun, an entomologist at Haifa University in Tel Aviv who was not ...
