The shrub that knows how to take stock of the situation

摘要

It's never fazed by seeds of doubt. A shrub with small, edible berries is a cool customer when parasites attack, responding in line with the severity of the infestation. Each fruit of the barberry, Berberis vulgaris, has either one or two seeds, which may be targeted by larvae of the tephritid fruit fly. Katrin Meyer, now at the University of Gottingen, Germany, and her colleagues collected around 2000 berries to study the attacks. If the berries were pierced - a sign the fly had laid eggs inside - the team also dissected them.