Okay but no like–if you’re a sessile organism (i.e. one that does not move), you still have to be able to adapt to changing environmental conditions, including potentially dangerous environmental conditions like fire and drought. Plant behavior, then, is a whole growing behavioral ecology field that studies how plants do change their behavior and physiology in response to their environment–without ever moving on a scale humans can see in the moment. (There are also sessile animals, like anemones and bivalves and barnacles, and plant behavior often pulls from studies of the way that these sessile animals respond to threat and danger by changing their behavior, too.) Trees, because they are long-lived and will therefore experience a wide range of environmental conditions in their one spot before they die, have to be particularly adaptable to change.
So what does it mean for a plant to change behavior in response to a threat? What’s going on with that ethylene gas? What’s the threat?
Well, acacia trees (not Arcadia) are infamously dry, prickly, nasty little trees that aren’t worth eating to most species. They have one big predator: the mighty giraffe.
Pictured: an acacia’s worst nightmare. Oh, it might look louche and unassuming, but giraffes eat fucktons of acacia by preference! And they particularly enjoy snacking on the flowers–the plant’s reproductive organs! What’s worse, acacias traditionally protect themselves in Africa by getting too tall for herbivores to reach and leaves growing enormous thorns all over themselves at lower levels. Giraffes, those bastards, circumvent all those lovely spiky thorns through being tall enough to just casually lean over them and snacking away. The WORST. Even if the acacia puts thorns all over itself, not just at the top, giraffes will cheerfully snake through the thorns using their long, prehensile tongues.
So what can an acacia do to combat the giraffe menace?
Different species try different tactics. Several species, especially bullthorn acacias, carefully feed and host aggressive colonies of ants to attack giraffes and other predators to drive them away. The ant colonies also often helpfully attack all of the competing plants within a radius of the tree, freeing up resources for the host tree.
But more commonly, acacias respond to getting bits eaten off itself by pumping their tissues (especially the tender leaves and shoots) full of tannins. That’s the nasty thing that makes red wine, black tea, and coffee taste so bitter to many humans… and taste interesting and astringent to others. At high enough concentrations, tannins are lethal. Acacias are good enough at producing tannins that they’re sometimes farmed for the purpose. But tannins aren’t cheap, and if there aren’t any herbivores around, maybe it’s better for the tree to put more energy into making new growth. It’s best not to waste them, after all. So plants keep them in reserve and only start really shoving them into the foliage when those bastard giraffes (or other herbivores) start damaging the plant’s growth. That damage triggers ethylene emission, which is an important stress hormone in plants. The ethylene coursing through the plant triggers release of the tannins with which the plant hopes to drive off or kill those bastard giraffes.
Well, wouldn’t it be great to know when that bastard giraffe might be coming before it eats all your nice delicate shoots and precious flowers? That way, you could get a head start on producing your tannins and minimize the damage that the fucking giraffe can do before you either drive it off or kill it. So acacias–and other plants–have ethylene receptors not just for their own hormonal signaling, but also so that they can smell the ethylene produced by other trees getting currently eaten by hungry giraffes. Remember, those leggy fuckers move, so you’d best prepare for them before they can get to you. Plants being able to communicate with one another about changes in environments before any given plant actually has to fight the giraffe allows them to adjust to change on the fly even without being able to change location or position in response to circumstances. Because the ethylene is carried on the wind, then, giraffes will actually move farther distances to graze on acacia trees, especially trees that are upwind–and therefore haven’t had a chance to prepare for the coming of the giraffe before it starts tonguing away.
Anyway that’s how I just spent an hour rolling around in bed composing this reply instead of getting up to take my meds. *fingerguns* those bastard giraffes strike again!
it’s absolutely valid in context but the phrase ‘giraffes and other predators’ sent me a place
to an acacia tree, the lion is a gentle, perhaps even benevolent source of tasty tasty nitrogen droppings, while thegiraffe is a fearsome hunter
what I’m saying is that everyone needs to take a plant’s-eye view of the world some time just to get some practice stepping out of our anthropocentric perspective and reflecting on what utter bastards giraffes can be
And acacia trees aren’t the only ones to do something like this!!
Nearly every plant species has some type of defense against herbivory. A lot of these are induced defenses, which the plant will activate when being attacked, such as in the case of acacia trees increasing tannin production in leaves.
There are all sorts of defenses like this, and many plants release chemicals to communicate with other plants around them!
My personal favorite defense is when a plant releases a chemical known as a volatile, which attracts the predators of whatever is eating it! Volatiles signal to predators that there is a tasty source of food around, and provides a beacon to the tree. This defense is often seen in instances of insect herbivory!!
Image description by aranealux
[Image Description:
1: A screenshot of a twitter post by izzitmichaela with text “I spent some time doing research on ADHD coping techniques and did you know that Arcadia trees can warn other trees of danger by emitting a cloud of ethylene gas”
2: a screenshot of a tumblr tag with text “this post fucks me up tf is a tree supposed to do about oncoming danger? Move?
3: Picture of a girraffe viewed from the side. It stands in dead grass, and there are trees in the background, stretching out into the distance.
/End ID]
Plants which release volatile (read: smell-up-the-air) compounds in this defensive way include … grass.
Yeah, they think maybe we like the scent of cut grass because it meant there was uncooked barbecue nearby in the form of grazing ruminants. (After all, we can’t eat grass.)
I’ve also detected and dispatched young hornworm caterpillars on my tomato plants which I wouldn’t have seen because my tomato plant smelled too nice that afternoon. Had the caterpillars gotten bigger they’d have stripped the plant to stems, so this was an urgent SOS from its perspective.
If you’re going to open a late-night donut shop, you’re going to need a unique set of over-the-top donuts to set the proper festive atmosphere. But how to keep the ideas coming?
I decided to see what donut ideas I could get using OpenAI’s GPT-3 text-generating models. I collected seven of the weirdest donuts and descriptions I could find (such as a pizza donut, or a dirt-themed donut), and presented them as a list for the AI to complete. I’ve drawn a few of the best donuts it added to the list.
ALT
[human illustrations of some of the ai-generated donuts below]
When I say I used “GPT-3” for this project it’s hard to be exact about it, because OpenAI often updates the models. The newest GPT-3 versions (as of May 2022) actually did the worst at this task - they kept presenting me with real donuts that they’d seen during their online training, and not even particularly weird donuts. They were trying to match what was most common online, not what I was asking for. But the original early-2020 GPT-3 models were more willing to deliver the weirdness. Here are some more of my favorite results from the various models!
The biggest model, DaVinci
Violet Beauregarde - A lemon glazed donut with blue raspberry eyes and a raspberry center The Candleberry Flu - A chocolate doughnut filled inside with ganache plus a dripping candle on top that’s dripping liquid sediments Brick of Yum - A glazed doughnut sandwiching American cheese, with red pepper jelly inside The Confusatron - A doughnut sliced into three layers - vanilla, coconut, and chocolate, dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with sugar pearls that look like circuit boards The Purple Stuff - Chocolate, oreo, and purple stuff sprinkled with powdered sugar
Curie, the second-largest model
Heckleberry - A strawberry donut smothered with blueberry syrup and crushed vegan Crunchies Donut of Doom - Rainbow donut filled with Frosted Flakes, black sprinkles, and sour candy The Alligator Rising - A spiral donut, frosted with chocolate and filled with a filling of chocolate hard-boiled egg and green apple slices Hell Raisin - A jelly donut with a filling of peanut butter and hot dogs Dark Crystal - A donut filled with candy corn and white chocolate chips I ♥ My Gay Ex - A rainbow Jell-O donut with white frosting, red sugar sprinkles, and pink glitter Fish N’ Chips – Topped with chocolate and tangy tempura-flavoured icing
Babbage, the second-smallest model
Mr Crepe - Topped with tapioca pudding, green sprinkles Little Red Apples - Topped with pumpkin bread crumbs and small red apples Chalkista - Stationary donut with chalk dusting Horns - Cupcake gripped in both of the animal’s horns Julius Rooms - A pair of bottomless donuts Doughnut Forest - A profusion of donuts spread throughout the French Quarter Flintlock fennec - bacon, fried okra, and burnt thermochromic alcohol Baffle - cocoa powder, giraffes, and vanilla wafers
Ada, the smallest and definitely weirdest model
Bath Roll - Three donuts melted hot on one side Friar Flats - Topped with tomatoes, honey, red paint and ceramic chili caps Ponder Owls - magical, yellow-feathered donuts covered in icing with puffiness and shine By Soul - filled with firecrackers, black bean dip, red pepper syrup, and watermelon Coconut Fun - Sulphure hasn’t been wiped off, a demon cake filled with coconut cream and pistachios Blood Donut - Creamy moist donut topped with spoonfuls of delicious blood Goofy Trick - the elephant, is a clown and it’s all about tossing treats into his skull Spankin’- Other-colored donut with a frying pan in the middle
If a giraffe isn’t standing perfectly still or lovingly nuzzling it’s calf, it is guaranteed to look like a total dork. Since giraffes are so tall, they have big huge giant hearts, like a little league baseball team from a bad neighborhood. But unlike a little league baseball team, giraffes have such high blood pressure that it’s actually dangerous for them to run too much. All the strain can make them just have a heart attack and drop dead. I don’t want to talk about that anymore though because now I’m imagining a baseball team full of fat little kids with diabetes and weak hearts and it’s making me sad. Thanks a lot, giraffes. Thanks for putting THAT image in my head. It’s the fucking Very Bad News Bears up in my mind’s eye right now. There was a lot more I wanted to say about giraffes but now I’m just so sad I can’t write anymore.
Hey guys let’s focus on happy fun things like the idea that when Camilla and her trauma kid gang™️ were deciding where to sleep she says to Luz in Spanish “you know your girlfriend isn’t sleeping in the same room as you right?” And Luz just sputters and coughs and chokes on her drink and goes “MAMA” and Camilla just laughs while everyone else is like ????
Luz brings the trauma gang™️ to the zoo and they all freak out at the giraffes
#Repost @starryeyedprincxss ・・・ Ok but my @thelittletude zoo onesie is killing me w cute I can’t wait to get better photos at the zoo! #littletude #thelittletude #onesie #rippedtights #ageplay #little #littlespace #tattoo #tattedgirls #ddlg #mdlg #cgl #ageregression #regression #regressor #giraffes #zooanimals #daddy #daddydom
If you’re going to open a late-night donut shop, you’re going to need a unique set of over-the-top donuts to set the proper festive atmosphere. But how to keep the ideas coming?
I decided to see what donut ideas I could get using OpenAI’s GPT-3 text-generating models. I collected seven of the weirdest donuts and descriptions I could find (such as a pizza donut, or a dirt-themed donut), and presented them as a list for the AI to complete. I’ve drawn a few of the best donuts it added to the list.
ALT
[human illustrations of some of the ai-generated donuts below]
When I say I used “GPT-3” for this project it’s hard to be exact about it, because OpenAI often updates the models. The newest GPT-3 versions (as of May 2022) actually did the worst at this task - they kept presenting me with real donuts that they’d seen during their online training, and not even particularly weird donuts. They were trying to match what was most common online, not what I was asking for. But the original early-2020 GPT-3 models were more willing to deliver the weirdness. Here are some more of my favorite results from the various models!
The biggest model, DaVinci
Violet Beauregarde - A lemon glazed donut with blue raspberry eyes and a raspberry center The Candleberry Flu - A chocolate doughnut filled inside with ganache plus a dripping candle on top that’s dripping liquid sediments Brick of Yum - A glazed doughnut sandwiching American cheese, with red pepper jelly inside The Confusatron - A doughnut sliced into three layers - vanilla, coconut, and chocolate, dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with sugar pearls that look like circuit boards The Purple Stuff - Chocolate, oreo, and purple stuff sprinkled with powdered sugar
Curie, the second-largest model
Heckleberry - A strawberry donut smothered with blueberry syrup and crushed vegan Crunchies Donut of Doom - Rainbow donut filled with Frosted Flakes, black sprinkles, and sour candy The Alligator Rising - A spiral donut, frosted with chocolate and filled with a filling of chocolate hard-boiled egg and green apple slices Hell Raisin - A jelly donut with a filling of peanut butter and hot dogs Dark Crystal - A donut filled with candy corn and white chocolate chips I ♥ My Gay Ex - A rainbow Jell-O donut with white frosting, red sugar sprinkles, and pink glitter Fish N’ Chips – Topped with chocolate and tangy tempura-flavoured icing
Babbage, the second-smallest model
Mr Crepe - Topped with tapioca pudding, green sprinkles Little Red Apples - Topped with pumpkin bread crumbs and small red apples Chalkista - Stationary donut with chalk dusting Horns - Cupcake gripped in both of the animal’s horns Julius Rooms - A pair of bottomless donuts Doughnut Forest - A profusion of donuts spread throughout the French Quarter Flintlock fennec - bacon, fried okra, and burnt thermochromic alcohol Baffle - cocoa powder, giraffes, and vanilla wafers
Ada, the smallest and definitely weirdest model
Bath Roll - Three donuts melted hot on one side Friar Flats - Topped with tomatoes, honey, red paint and ceramic chili caps Ponder Owls - magical, yellow-feathered donuts covered in icing with puffiness and shine By Soul - filled with firecrackers, black bean dip, red pepper syrup, and watermelon Coconut Fun - Sulphure hasn’t been wiped off, a demon cake filled with coconut cream and pistachios Blood Donut - Creamy moist donut topped with spoonfuls of delicious blood Goofy Trick - the elephant, is a clown and it’s all about tossing treats into his skull Spankin’- Other-colored donut with a frying pan in the middle
ALT
