To make sure that flying pollinators come to flowers to pick up pollen, plants evolved special organs, the nectaries, to attract the animals. Scientists have now identified the sugar transporter that ...

Flowers get all the attention when it comes to providing nectar for pollinating insects, but Tino shows another, less well-known source of nectar. They’re called extra-floral nectaries - quite a ...

Biologists Laura Carolina Leal and Felipe Passos have performed a series of experiments to determine how plants with extrafloral nectaries interact with ants in Brazil's Northeast region—specifically, ...

Scientists discovered that swollen-thorn acacias invested more in ant rewards during a drought, suggesting that mutualistic interactions play a crucial role in the plant’s survival, even during ...

Around 4,000 plant species from different parts of the world secrete nectar outside their flowers, such as on their stems or leaves, through secretory glands known as extrafloral nectaries. Unlike ...

If the bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) is consumed by herbivores, the plant secretes a nectar directly from the wounds that attracts ants and thus protects the plant from further feeding ...

Question: My nectarine and peach trees have hard pale green ball things near the base of leaves. What are they and are they harmful to my trees? Answer: How cool! I’d never heard of anything like this ...

Nectar is the secret sauce for boosting biodiversity and increasing the number of beneficial interactions in the ecosystems around us. Elizabeth has worked since 2010 as a writer and consultant ...

Six years ago, Anke Steppuhn noticed that the bittersweet nightshade, when attacked by slugs and insects in a greenhouse, would bleed. Small droplets would exude from the wounds of its part-eaten ...

Evolution is based on diversity, and sexual reproduction is key to creating a diverse population that secures competitiveness in nature. Plants had to solve a problem: they needed to find ways to ...

Stanford, CA— Evolution is based on diversity, and sexual reproduction is key to creating a diverse population that secures competitiveness in nature. Plants had to solve a problem: they needed to ...