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Topic: Tomato turn vegeterians into cannibals. - page 2. (Read 1094 times)

legendary
Activity: 1292
Merit: 1000
Note - even if plants are intelligent, vegetarianism still makes perfect sense.

Why, you ask?  Because by eating a cow/pig/chicken, you're eating something which ate plants and also used energy in their lives.  So you're eating far, far more plants indirectly than you would be by just eating the plants.

Of course there's also the fact carbon emissions would decrease if people didn't pointless breed >1 billion cows.  There wouldn't naturally be so many, and there would be plants grown in those spaces instead.

The natural food chain is inefficient, but that doesn't matter to the individual animal who eats another animal, because they will take any food source that they can get.  Humans on the other hand are perfectly capable of living on plants and are not bound by instinct.  It makes no sense to deliberately take the choice of making all your lives extremely inefficient and wasting resources.  It especially confuses me when people take steps like shortening showers to save water, but ignore the effects of animal agriculture.
If the natural food-chain was efficient, no life would exist whatsoever. After all, it takes up energy to even create a creature capable of consuming another. In terms of efficiency we'd be better off with nothing. I'm glad that the universe doesn't behave that way and am hoping that lab grown meat will make huge progress in the very near future. Until then I'll keep looking out for farm-raised meat and keep eating it.


Also, lol at tomato propaganda driving insects insane.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
A the end of the way, living things eat other ones. So there must exist a balance. 
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 559
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Note - even if plants are intelligent, vegetarianism still makes perfect sense.

Why, you ask?  Because by eating a cow/pig/chicken, you're eating something which ate plants and also used energy in their lives.  So you're eating far, far more plants indirectly than you would be by just eating the plants.

Of course there's also the fact carbon emissions would decrease if people didn't pointlessly breed >1 billion cows.  There wouldn't naturally be so many, and there would be plants grown in those spaces instead.

The natural food chain is inefficient, but that doesn't matter to the individual animal who eats another animal, because they will take any food source that they can get.  Humans on the other hand are perfectly capable of living on plants and are not bound by instinct.  It makes no sense to deliberately take the choice of making all your lives extremely inefficient and wasting resources.  It especially confuses me when people take steps like shortening showers to save water, but ignore the effects of animal agriculture.
newbie
Activity: 19
Merit: 0
Plants are alive right? So they are also assasins, they must stop these crimes.
sr. member
Activity: 868
Merit: 266
This is indeed very funny, I know some vegetarians and they are definitely not acting like the zombies in the walking dead, You should present some proof with what you are saying, A detailed research from a credited laboratory will help us believe what you are saying because i dont believe a word of it.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
very stupid conspiracy theory, I eat vegetables every day, and i dont eat flesh, i am not a zombie lol
sr. member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 279

I knew it, those bloody things are evil! *dips fries in ketchup*

Not surprising though. Plants are more clever than we give them credit for. Caffeine for example, have different effect depending on who ingested it. Pests tend to get poisoned when they eat the leaves and fruits while pollinators get a buzz, helping them remember the location of the plant.


But is it the tomatoes who are the villains in this story, or the caterpillars? The tomatoes can't actually force the caterpillars to eat each other, and the caterpillars can actually find food elsewhere. The topic of cannibalism, in any species, is quite fascinating as we as humans often claim that it is something so barbaric that we would never be able to do such a thing. But history has proven multiple times that during certain circumstanses humans are capable to do horrible things. In that senario we are the caterpillars and the world; a tomato.


The world is not black and white. Those caterpillars have to eat to stay alive, the plants need to survive too. Same with cannibalism in humans. Even in cultures where it is frowned upon, it becomes a last resort during times of need. War for example, has been known to force citizens of besieged cities to eat each other. Though I suppose they'll try to eat enemies first if they can.
member
Activity: 111
Merit: 10
July 22, 2017, 10:36:05 AM
#9
Cannibals not only benefit the plant by eating herbivores, but cannibals also don’t have as much appetite for plant material, presumably because they’re already full from eating other caterpillars.”
member
Activity: 111
Merit: 10
July 22, 2017, 10:34:46 AM
#8
some Many insects are known to become cannibalistic when the going gets tough,” said biologist John Orrock, author of a new study on the phenomenon published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

“It often starts with one caterpillar biting another one in the rear, which then oozes. And it goes downhill from there.

“At the end of the day, somebody gets eaten.”

Its believed a chemical called methyl jasmonate is responsible for turning caterpillars into cannibals.

To test the effect of this substance, Orrock and his team sprayed it on leaves and found that caterpillars who were exposed to it were more likely to chow down on their chums.

They also found that methyl jasmonate worked like a “chemical scream” by alerting other plants so they could produce their own defences.
member
Activity: 111
Merit: 10
July 22, 2017, 10:33:23 AM
#7
Scientists simulated a protective response to plant pests by tomatoes, which causes them to produce a chemical that turns their taste sour.

They found that the higher the concentration of the organic compound, the faster the caterpillars would begin to consume their comrades.

The result demonstrates a previously unknown effect of plants' defensive mechanisms, say the researchers
sr. member
Activity: 490
Merit: 252
http://VKcams.com/
July 22, 2017, 09:05:42 AM
#6
Quote
...
And we assume you need ears to hear. But researchers, says Pollan, have played a recording of a caterpillar munching on a leaf to plants — and the plants react. They begin to secrete defensive chemicals — even though the plant isn't really threatened, Pollan says. "It is somehow hearing what is, to it, a terrifying sound of a caterpillar munching on its leaves."
...
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants
hero member
Activity: 1764
Merit: 584
July 22, 2017, 07:24:37 AM
#5
Quote
ACACIA trees pass on an ‘alarm signal’ to other trees when antelope
browse on their leaves, according to a zoologist from Pretoria University.
Wouter Van Hoven says that acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin
in quantities lethal to the browsers, and emit ethylene into the air which
can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of the impending
danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just
five to ten minutes.

Van Hoven made his discovery when asked to investigate the sudden death
of some 3000 South African antelope, called kudu, on game ranches in the
Transvaal. He noticed that giraffe, roaming freely, browsed only on one
acacia tree in ten, avoiding those trees which were downwind. Kudu, which
are fenced in on the game ranches, have little other than acacia leaves
to eat during the winter months. So the antelope continue to browse until
the tannin from the leaves sets off a lethal metabolic chain reaction in
their bodies.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717361.200-antelope-activate-the-acacias-alarm-system-/

Plants truly are fascinating. We just think they're some sort of passive organisms but because they can't move, they have resorted to chemical signalling to communicate with each other. It seems most plants do it, the moment they're leaves are eaten, they send out an alarm. It seems they can even differentiate insect bite from other manners of damage.

Go look up passionflower vs butterfly on Google, it's a very interesting sort of "cold war" between the two.
sr. member
Activity: 490
Merit: 252
http://VKcams.com/
July 20, 2017, 05:09:58 PM
#4
Quote
ACACIA trees pass on an ‘alarm signal’ to other trees when antelope
browse on their leaves, according to a zoologist from Pretoria University.
Wouter Van Hoven says that acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin
in quantities lethal to the browsers, and emit ethylene into the air which
can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of the impending
danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just
five to ten minutes.

Van Hoven made his discovery when asked to investigate the sudden death
of some 3000 South African antelope, called kudu, on game ranches in the
Transvaal. He noticed that giraffe, roaming freely, browsed only on one
acacia tree in ten, avoiding those trees which were downwind. Kudu, which
are fenced in on the game ranches, have little other than acacia leaves
to eat during the winter months. So the antelope continue to browse until
the tannin from the leaves sets off a lethal metabolic chain reaction in
their bodies.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717361.200-antelope-activate-the-acacias-alarm-system-/
legendary
Activity: 2996
Merit: 6138
Meh.
July 20, 2017, 12:17:05 PM
#3
Quote
it's now been shown that tomato plants can team up to directly push caterpillars into cannibalism.

“This is a new ecological mechanism of induced resistance that effectively changes the behaviour of the insects,” says Richard Karban, who studies interactions between herbivores and their host plants at the University of California at Davis and was not involved in the study.

Herbivorous pests often turn on each other when their food is of poor quality or it runs out. And some plants are known to affect the behaviour of their pests by making them more predatory towards other species. But until now it was unclear whether plants could directly cause caterpillar cannibalism.
http://www.nature.com/news/plants-turn-caterpillars-into-cannibals-1.22281

I knew it, those bloody things are evil! *dips fries in ketchup*

Not surprising though. Plants are more clever than we give them credit for. Caffeine for example, have different effect depending on who ingested it. Pests tend to get poisoned when they eat the leaves and fruits while pollinators get a buzz, helping them remember the location of the plant.





But is it the tomatoes who are the villains in this story, or the caterpillars? The tomatoes can't actually force the caterpillars to eat each other, and the caterpillars can actually find food elsewhere. The topic of cannibalism, in any species, is quite fascinating as we as humans often claim that it is something so barbaric that we would never be able to do such a thing. But history has proven multiple times that during certain circumstanses humans are capable to do horrible things. In that senario we are the caterpillars and the world; a tomato.
sr. member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 279
July 20, 2017, 12:05:44 PM
#2
Quote
it's now been shown that tomato plants can team up to directly push caterpillars into cannibalism.

“This is a new ecological mechanism of induced resistance that effectively changes the behaviour of the insects,” says Richard Karban, who studies interactions between herbivores and their host plants at the University of California at Davis and was not involved in the study.

Herbivorous pests often turn on each other when their food is of poor quality or it runs out. And some plants are known to affect the behaviour of their pests by making them more predatory towards other species. But until now it was unclear whether plants could directly cause caterpillar cannibalism.
http://www.nature.com/news/plants-turn-caterpillars-into-cannibals-1.22281

I knew it, those bloody things are evil! *dips fries in ketchup*

Not surprising though. Plants are more clever than we give them credit for. Caffeine for example, have different effect depending on who ingested it. Pests tend to get poisoned when they eat the leaves and fruits while pollinators get a buzz, helping them remember the location of the plant.



sr. member
Activity: 490
Merit: 252
http://VKcams.com/
July 20, 2017, 10:35:21 AM
#1
Quote
it's now been shown that tomato plants can team up to directly push caterpillars into cannibalism.

“This is a new ecological mechanism of induced resistance that effectively changes the behaviour of the insects,” says Richard Karban, who studies interactions between herbivores and their host plants at the University of California at Davis and was not involved in the study.

Herbivorous pests often turn on each other when their food is of poor quality or it runs out. And some plants are known to affect the behaviour of their pests by making them more predatory towards other species. But until now it was unclear whether plants could directly cause caterpillar cannibalism.
http://www.nature.com/news/plants-turn-caterpillars-into-cannibals-1.22281
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