Plants Eating Plants

[Tenet Nosce]

I wonder what are the spiritual implications!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...121913.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2012) — Flowers need water and light to grow. Even children learn that plants use sunlight to gather energy from earth and water. Members of Professor Dr. Olaf Kruse's biological research team at Bielefeld University have made a groundbreaking discovery that one plant has another way of doing this. They have confirmed for the first time that a plant, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, not only engages in photosynthesis, but also has an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. This finding could also have a major impact on the future of bioenergy.

The alga secretes enzymes (so-called cellulose enzymes) that 'digest' the cellulose, breaking it down into smaller sugar components. These are then transported into the cells and transformed into a source of energy: the alga can continue to grow.

'This is the first time that such a behaviour has been confirmed in a vegetable organism', says Professor Kruse. 'That algae can digest cellulose contradicts every previous textbook. To a certain extent, what we are seeing is plants eating plants'.

[Goldenratio]

Life uses any available resource to grow and prosper. Seems fairly true across the spectrum of existence, at least at this level. Seems fairly in line with anything else. Plants kill other plants often enough, digest plant remains after it been broken down into soil, to me it just seems these micro-flora have removed the need for the material to be broken down by another process before they consume it.

[Karl]

Sweet. Plant predators.

[Eddie]

Misletoe is parasitic. Dodder is a parasitic plant in corn and a few other crops; the USDA had an eradication program for years aimed at dodder.

[Ray]

Let's just hope some shortsighted geneticist doesn't monkey around with it's genes in an effort to make it more efficient, and create an omnivorous strain.

[Cyan]

Ahh, genetic engineering to produce "better" versions of something in a fractal holographic universe. Thats a fucking ingenious thing, how about I inject "better" versions of your kidney cells to your kidney? Cancer you say.