![]() ![]() The chain was complete.īecause they used both common plants and fungi, the team believes their results show that such nitrogen chains: insects-fungi-plants, are likely very common. Two weeks later they tested the plants and found that the nitrogen in the beans was 28% nitrogen-15, and 32% in the switchgrass, proving that the plants had obtained at least some of their nitrogen from the fungi that had in turn got it from killing the enriched larvae. Then, they buried the infected larvae in the soil among the plant roots, along with a mesh to prevent the roots of the plants from reaching past the infected soil to soil that had been enriched with nitrogen through normal bacterial decomposition. ![]() Next they infected the soil near the roots of the plants with Metarhizium, a very common type of fungi that is known to kill insects by releasing an enzyme that eats its way through the outer shell allowing the bug inside to be easily devoured. To find out, they chose two random but common plants, haricot beans and switchgrass.įirst they fed waxmoth larve a diet rich in a non-common type of nitrogen nitrogen-15, so as to be able to distinguish it from the nitrogen that would normally be found in the plants. After noting that a prior team of researchers had found that white pine trees got some of their nitrogen from fungus living in their roots that had obtained the nitrogen by killing springtails, the team wondered if perhaps many other plants did the same. ![]()
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