Mike 🇨🇦 NuanceRhymesWithOrangeTrillium season.
Stewart Russell@NuanceRhymesWithOrange a great excuse to use the word "myrmecochorous" (having seeds that are dispersed by ants), because that's what Trilliums are.
Cadmus
myrmepropagandist@camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
"Myrmecochory" is literally "ant walking" because these kinds of plants have little ant treats stuck to their seeds and the ants discover they have to drag the whole seed just to get the good bit back to their nest... which is often a great place for a seed to grow.
@camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
OK. Prepare to have your mind blown. You thought Myrmecochory was wild? Plants that get ants to move their seeds? How about wasps that mimic such seeds by inducing an Oak tree to grow a gall with an elisome (the yummy part that makes the ants want to move it)
That's right, some gall-making wasps create galls that are dispersed by ants using the myrmecochory behavioral template from seeds!
🤯
David Bridger@camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
Those structures are NOT the eggs of the wasp. It's grown by the oak tree. Those are oak tree cells that have been tricked by the power of the wasps and their larvae to make this strange structure that seems to not benefit the tree at all.
How do wasps make plants do these things for them? Can you make a tree grow in the shape of a nice house for YOUR child?
Michael Gemar@futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange Where do the ants take the galls? Back to their nest?
@michaelgemar @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
They take them back to their nest and remove the elisome. Then they toss the gall in their garbage pile. And that's seems to be where everyone (seeds, baby wasps in galls) wants to be. In the ant garbage for some reason.
A cool crab wearing shades@michaelgemar @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange ANT GARBAGE IS THE PLACE TO BE
@neckspike @futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange I’m hearing the Green Acres theme song…
@michaelgemar @neckspike @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
*sings*
Ant garbage is the place to be
Myrmecochory is a ride for free
Detritus spread out far and wide
keep the canopy let ant refuse be my guide!
@michaelgemar @neckspike @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
I'd watch a show about a pair of urban gall wasps learning to live in the ant garbage pile...
Peace is Not A Fable 
Sin Vega@futurebird @michaelgemar @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange ant garbage is full of cool creatures who either outsmarted the ants or were exactly annoying enough to them to get kicked out but not killed.
it's kind of like when some chud creates a list of targets to mock or threaten them and it's basically all the soundest people you've ever met
Steve Gisselbrecht@futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
This is a neat question. There are bacteria that inject DNA into plant cells, that encodes a protein that activates other genes and turns on a whole genetic program to make gall-like structures that the bacteria live in. I wonder if the wasps use commensal bacteria to do the same thing!
@futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
Hmmm. I'm obviously not the first to think of this, and apparently the idea does not hold up?
"Although past hypotheses have suggested mutualisms with viruses or virus-like particles, there is little evidence for these as effectors in gall development."
@futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
(Also I slightly messed up the biology of the plant bacteria; they inject the proteins themselves, not the genes for them. Sorry!)
Lúmëcolca@futurebird @camless @scruss @NuanceRhymesWithOrange
This reminds me of a book I read like 25 years ago? I think it was The Forever Hero by L.E. Modesitt Jr.?
@futurebird @camless every time I think the world has got weird enough, there's a little wasp somewhere making it even weirder