Yamawo Akira, Mukai Hiromi
Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, Hirosaki University, 1, Bunkyo-cho, Hirosaki 036-8560, Japan
Department of Forest Entomology, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan.
Proc Biol Sci. 2017 Jun 28;284(1857). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0800.
Numerous organisms integrate information from multiple sources and express adaptive behaviours, but how they do so at different developmental stages remains to be identified. Seeds, which are the embryonic stage of plants, need to make decisions about the timing of emergence in response to environmental cues related to survival. We investigated the timing of emergence of (Plantaginaceae) seed while manipulating the presence of seed and the relatedness of neighbouring seed. The relatedness of neighbouring seed and the presence of seeds of did not on their own influence the timing of emergence. However, when encountering a seed, a seed emerged faster in the presence of a sibling seed than in the presence of a non-sibling seed. Water extracts of seeds gave the same result. We show that seeds integrate information about the relatedness of neighbouring seeds and the presence of seeds of a different species via water-soluble chemicals and adjust their emergence behaviour in response. These findings suggest the presence of kin-dependent interspecific interactions.
许多生物体整合来自多个来源的信息并表现出适应性行为，但它们在不同发育阶段如何做到这一点仍有待确定。种子作为植物的胚胎阶段，需要根据与生存相关的环境线索来决定萌发时间。我们在控制车前科种子的存在以及相邻种子的亲缘关系的同时，研究了车前科种子的萌发时间。相邻车前科种子的亲缘关系以及其他种子的存在本身并不会影响车前科种子的萌发时间。然而，当遇到其他种子时，与非亲缘种子相比，车前科种子在有亲缘种子存在时萌发得更快。种子的水提取物也得到了相同的结果。我们表明，车前科种子通过水溶性化学物质整合有关相邻种子亲缘关系和不同物种种子存在的信息，并相应地调整其萌发行为。这些发现表明存在依赖亲缘关系的种间相互作用。
