Plants use molecular ‘measuring tape’ to tell friend from foe - OC Today-Dispatch

A new study has found that adaptive molecular convergence—the process by which distantly related or unrelated species evolve the same genomic changes—is not as rare as previously thought.

Plants are crucial for life on land. The energy they capture from the Sun underpins the existence of almost all land-based animals, fungi and bacteria. In particular, flowering plants – the most productive and diverse group of land plants – dominate most ecosystems on Earth. There are at least 350,000 species, and they’re vital for capturing carbon dioxide from the air.

Anyone who’s seen the 1986 musical comedy, Little Shop of Horrors, is familiar with Audrey II. Audrey II looks like a towering, blood-eating Venus flytrap plant, even mimicking the jaw-like, snapping pod of real carnivorous plants. But while Venus flytraps consume insects, Audrey II feeds on humans. Thankfully, people-eating plants are fictional, says Kenny Coogan, the owner of Carnivorous Plants by Kenny Coogan, a well-known nursery in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad area.