The survival of plants on our planet is nothing short of
miraculous. They are virtually stationary packages of food,
providing sustenance for a vast array of organisms, ranging from
bacteria and fungi, through to insects, and even other plants. But
plants are master survivors, having coped with changing
environments and evolving predators over much of the history of
life on earth. They have surveillance systems and defences that
would put most modern armies to shame. They need to have a
formidable armoury, because their enemies have sophisticated
weaponry of their own. In this often hostile world, battles are
fought daily, often to the death. These battles are not trivial -
they matter, because life on this fragile planet of ours depends on
plants. In this book Dale Walters takes readers on a journey
through these battlefields, exploring how predators try to fool
plants' surveillance systems and, if they manage to do so, how they
gain access to the nourishment they require. Incredibly, successful
attackers can manipulate plant function in order to suppress any
attempt by the plant to mount defensive action, while at the same
time ensuring a steady supply of food for their own survival.
Walters shows how plants respond to such attacks, the defences they
use, and how the attacked plant can communicate its plight to its
neighbours. These skirmishes represent the latest stage in an
unending evolutionary war between plants and organisms that feed on
them. These battles might be on a micro scale, but they are every
bit as fierce, complicated, and fascinating as the battles between
animal predators and prey.
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Review This Product
My review
Mon, 2 Jul 2018 | Review
by: Tanya K.
Dale Walters makes use of an amusing fortress metaphor (the plant is the fortress and bacteria, fungi, insects, vegetarians etc are the invaders) to explore the large variety of methods stationary plants use to defend themselves from everything that want to eat them. This book is divided into chapters on "recognizing the enemy", alerting the plant of imminent invasion "call to arms", the weapons of war, the variety of chemical compounds used to deter/destroy invaders, aid from plant "friends", and the never-ending evolving arms-race between plants and their enemies. This book is written with the intelligent, intersted reader in mind - not everything is over-explained or simplified and there is a fair amount of botany and biochemistry involved. However, I do not believe that there is anything particularly difficult to understand in this book provided the reader is paying attention and not expecting to breeze through the book. I found this book very interesting, with a lovely writing style, juicy science stuff and no irrelevant biographical side tangents. The multitude of photographs were also very useful.
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