1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Hello, my name's Lindsay Turnbull and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:10,000 at the University of Oxford, and we're right in the middle of this very serious corona virus crisis right 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:15,000 now. And my students are all stuck at home and we want to keep them in touch with biology 4 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:21,000 and keep in touch with us. And so we're going to make a new series of videos and they're going to be called back garden 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:45,000 biology. 6 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:50,000 Hello, welcome to this week's episode of Back Garden Biology. I'm down by the shed and where 7 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:55,000 we have the garlic mustard. And this time I'm looking at another plant that I've just allowed to grow if 8 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:01,000 I haven't planted either of these plants here. The most obvious thing you can see here are Spanish bluebells 9 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:07,000 and that I haven't planted those. They were just here in the garden when I arrived, as was this strange 10 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:12,000 thing with a very large green sort of arrow shaped leaves. 11 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000 And with the thing at the bottom like that, it's like a big Irish shape. This 12 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:23,000 is Arem Macchi Lartin. It's a very common native British plant 13 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:28,000 that grows in woodlands and can often be found in gardens and again, normally treated as a 14 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:33,000 weed. But here at the back of the garden, I like to leave things like that and just let them do 15 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:38,000 their thing. What I do to get out when it comes up in my flowerbeds, I have to admit. Let's have a closer 16 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:44,000 look at one of these plants. What's interesting about it now is its flowering. So you can see the extraordinary 17 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,000 looking structure appearing in the middle. That is the Infra-Red essence. It's all closed 18 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:54,000 up tight at the moment. And as it opens, you can see it change. I'll just 19 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,000 cut off an open one now and we'll have a look at it. So unfortunately, the only ones that are open are facing away 20 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,000 from us. So I'm going to cut one off right at the base and show you what 21 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:10,000 it looks like. And it's this extraordinary looking thing. So you can see that this part opens. 22 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,000 And in the middle there you have this extraordinary structure called a spandex. This is spandex or 23 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:21,000 a spade axe, actually. And it is said that this 24 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:26,000 on the day it opens. It's supposed to start producing a stench. 25 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:31,000 Well, I can still smell it on that one, actually. And it's a stench and it is a stench. Not a lot 26 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:37,000 of delightful aroma. It is a stench of stale urine. That's how hard it is. And it's trying 27 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:42,000 to attract pollinators. Believe it or not, tiny little things called moth midges. 28 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:47,000 And in there is where the business end of the flower. So the inflorescence, 29 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:53,000 the pollen and the and the female flowers that need to have pollen transferred onto them are tucked away 30 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:58,000 inside here. We're going to dissect one and have a better look. But what's interesting, what we're trying 31 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:03,000 to do at the moment is on the day this opens and this smell starts 32 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:08,000 to appear, the spade X here is supposed to start heating up and you're supposed 33 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:14,000 to measure that. So we're out here with our thermometer trying to measure 34 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:20,000 does this heat up? Can we measure it? And just how hot does it actually get? 35 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:25,000 So what I'm going to try and do now is we've brought a little temperature measuring device. So 36 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:30,000 it has a screen that displays the output and connected to our two thermocouples, 37 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:35,000 which can make reasonably accurate measurements of the temperature. And we're going to see whether that Spayd 38 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:40,000 X inside the Spayd the brands by Cuba, whether it really does heat up. Now 39 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:45,000 we've actually been trying all through the day to measure this on one that we thought was a newly opened flower and not 40 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:51,000 measuring anything very convincing. It's now six o'clock in the evening. We came down to have one last 41 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:56,000 go because this is the time when they're really supposed to be heating up to the maximum. And we realised 42 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:01,000 that a new one had just opened. And the smell from that was incredible. So that's 43 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:06,000 the one we're going to try and measure now. We think actually they have almost a little bit too old. So let's focus 44 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:12,000 on the screen. You can see you've got a top measurement there of nineteen point one and a bottom 45 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:17,000 one of nineteen point two, ninety point three. So they're both giving a very similar measurement. 46 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:22,000 And this is the this is T2. So this is the lower one. So this should be the lower 47 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:27,000 reading. I'm going to place it against this newly open space X and see if we can see 48 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:45,000 the temperature climb. So. 49 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,000 Let me have a look then. Oh, my goodness, I was trying to try hard to keep it in contact 50 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:56,000 with the speed X, so it is around 25 degrees when ambient 51 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:02,000 temperature is only around 19. So it's managing about five degrees C above ambient. 52 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:08,000 And I think that's pretty impressive. You know, this is a plant. It's not a mammal. 53 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:13,000 It's very unusual to have a plant. They can heat itself up like that. And it's no coincidence, of course, that 54 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:19,000 the smell off there is now so powerful. That's why it's heating up so it can disseminate 55 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:24,000 that smell as widely as possible. So let's go inside and dissect one of those flowers 56 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:29,000 and see exactly what's bothering to go to all this effort. So we cut off this 57 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:34,000 inflorescence. I'm going to have a go at dissecting it after. I've never done it before. And I've got 58 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:39,000 a little a little paper, scientific paper next to me, which describes what I should be finding 59 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:45,000 inside here. But I'm going to see whether I could find that or not. So this is the space. 60 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:50,000 And the brown thing is the spade X. Now, I didn't say what this plant is called in English. I gave you 61 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:55,000 its Latin name, Air Immaculata, and it has a lot of common 62 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:00,000 English names, some of them, frankly, far too rude for me to reveal in this film, 63 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:05,000 but it's often called now either Lords and Ladies, which all sounds very clean or 64 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:10,000 cuckoo Pynt. And when I tell you that patent is a shortening of an old of 65 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:16,000 the old English word pencil, which means penis. Then you can see why a lot of these names are, 66 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:21,000 well, not fit for family consumption, though, because mediaeval people were much more robust and bawdy than 67 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,000 we are now. Okay. This whole thing is a trap. It's a trap for those 68 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:31,000 moth matches or our images. They are attracted by the smell. They then go 69 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 down into here where they are trapped for the night and forced to pick up pollen and move pollen 70 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:42,000 around. And as the thing withers away, then they're released again. So I don't know what state this one's in. 71 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:47,000 I don't think it's been open for very long. But it didn't just open today. Okay, let's open it 72 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:52,000 up and see what we can see. So I'm going to peel 73 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:58,000 this away. See if I don't have to cut it. But if I can just get it by peeling it 74 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:06,000 to unfold there, I'm going to unfold here. 75 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:11,000 Oh, yes. And look what we can see inside here, 76 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:17,000 that is rather marvellous. So you can see I'll try and hold it still as I 77 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:22,000 can at the bottom of the space. X is a first ring of has. That 78 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:28,000 is the trap. So here is if you can see a that that is one of these tiny little 79 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:33,000 moth images or our midges crawling out and crawling up and away up the 80 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:38,000 speed X. So that is what the plant was trying to do. And it succeeded. 81 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:43,000 So you've got this ring of hands. These are the male flowers, then the little brown ones that 82 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:48,000 produce the pollen. And this cluster at the bottom are the female flowers. 83 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:54,000 And there is some nectar down there to keep our little owl alive. And there's a second 84 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:59,000 sparse row of has there, which also helps to keep the insects in. So isn't this amazing? 85 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:05,000 You know, I always think that we pay a lot of attention to, you know, pitcher plants 86 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:10,000 and exciting plants that you can find that you go to go a long way to find them. But this is something in your 87 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:15,000 back garden as clever a thing as you could ever hope to find in the Galapagos Islands 88 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:20,000 or anywhere else. And what's even more amazing is that there is just a single 89 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:26,000 species of moth, Midge. That is that this plant depends on only one species 90 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:31,000 basically pollinate this plant. And it just goes to show how fragile a lots of 91 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:36,000 the connexions are, the ecological connexions out there. And that's why it's really important to preserve 92 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:42,000 as much as we possibly can, because most things are doing something, even if we're not always 93 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:47,000 clear exactly what it is all to think for a minute about how that Aaron produces 94 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:52,000 that incredible heat. And when you see something like that, you know that there must be something going on in the cells 95 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:57,000 that underpin it. So I want to think about a plant cell for a moment and how it works. 96 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:02,000 So this tray on the table here is going to represent my plant cell. Plant 97 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:07,000 cells are square, rectangular because they have a rigid cell wall, which we're not going to focus on this 98 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:13,000 time. And here are some of the main components of a cell. This is supposed to represent the nucleus. 99 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:18,000 And inside that, we have the genome. That's all the information that cell needs to carry out all of 100 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:24,000 its activities. But an instruction manuals, no good if there's no one to carry out the instructions. 101 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:29,000 So the cell also has what we can think of as key workers. The key workers are called ribosomes. 102 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:34,000 We're hearing a lot about. He works at the moment and an inside cell. The key workers are ribosomes. This is not 103 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:39,000 to scale. They would be incredibly tiny. It's their job is to translate 104 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:44,000 messages. So from the genome, messages come out and the ribosomes 105 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:50,000 will clamp on to it. They look a bit like a little snowman, small bit and a large bit. And the message goes in between 106 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:55,000 May well then read the message and they will build the component that the cell needs. And all those 107 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:00,000 components are made out of something called protein. And it's their job to build the proteins by sticking 108 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:06,000 together. Individual building blocks called amino acids. Now, that 109 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:11,000 process, which we call protein synthesis, demands a lots of energy. So the cell 110 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:16,000 needs to produce energy. And the way it does this is to provide little the 111 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:21,000 equivalent. It's a molecule is the equivalent of a battery. And that molecule is called 112 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:26,000 ATP. And those little batteries can be plugged in here is that zap zap to fuel 113 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:32,000 this process. But once they've been used, they have to be recharged. And that goes 114 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:39,000 on somewhere else in a cell. So in an animal cell, we'd have a lot of these things called mitochondria. 115 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:44,000 And those are where the batteries are recharged and the animal eats sugar, its food and 116 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:49,000 the glucose is sent here. And that glucose has lots of energy stored in the bonds. 117 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:54,000 And if you rip glucose apart, you can release that energy. And in the mitochondria, 118 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:00,000 the energy that's released by destroying glucose is used to recharge the ATP 119 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:05,000 batteries. Now, plant cells also have these mitochondria. Her plant 120 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:11,000 cells, of course, are famous for being green. And that's because, unlike animal cells, they have an extra 121 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:17,000 structure in the cell and that's called a chloroplasts. And these harness the sun's energy 122 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:22,000 and produce glucose. So they didn't have to eat anything. They're making their own food, but they still 123 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:27,000 have to recharge ATP batteries. Some of that can be done here by the chloroplast itself. 124 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:33,000 But a lot of it is done here. And, of course, in the dark, the cell has to keep running, has to keep making things. 125 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:38,000 And it has to rely on these mitochondria. Now, this process of ripping apart 126 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:44,000 glucose and recharging ATP, ATP batteries is called respiration. 127 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:49,000 And all cells do that. Now, what's interesting in the area 128 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:54,000 is it's got to generate a huge amounts of heat. And as we said, normally the mitochondria, 129 00:11:54,000 --> 00:12:00,000 the plants are not running at really full tilt. They don't need to recharge billions 130 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:05,000 of ATP batteries all the time because the plant is not nearly is not expanding as much 131 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:11,000 as. She as an animal cell word. So these are just ticking over, if you like, 132 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:16,000 what we arem wants, that is to produce a huge amounts of heat. And although that process of 133 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:21,000 respiration will produce small amounts of heat, it has decided to do something 134 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:26,000 different. So what it does when it sends the glucose to the mitochondria 135 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:32,000 is it's got a different pathway that it can send them down. So instead of the energy being harnessed 136 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:37,000 to recharge ATP batteries to do normal cell stuff, all that energy 137 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:43,000 is just wasted as heat. So they uncoupled the process of destroying the glucose 138 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:48,000 and normally that energy being harnessed to something productive, to just letting it all be generated as heat. 139 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:53,000 And for a couple of hours only, that plant cell is blasting through 140 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:59,000 glucose at a similar rate to the muscles in the wings of a hummingbird. 141 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:04,000 So just for a couple of hours in its life, once the year, that 142 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:09,000 arem really takes flight. So we're just finishing this video where we 143 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:14,000 began at this little patch of our immaculate home. You can see this one here 144 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:19,000 compared to even 24 hours ago in fluorescence, the swelling up a bit more and 145 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:25,000 I suspect six o'clock this evening. But that is going to open and the smell is going to start 146 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:30,000 heating up. Process is going to begin. So I really hope that you get a chance to have a 147 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:35,000 look at this. I mean, it's really one of the most amazing things I've seen I know about or knew about 148 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:40,000 it, but I've never actually gone out and had a really close look myself. I've never tried to measure the temperature 149 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:46,000 myself. It just goes to show how all of us, even professional biologists, have become 150 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:51,000 more and more disconnected from the real organisms. And we spend far too much time 151 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:56,000 indoors. So good luck with your Arum lilies. And I hope you can get some temperature 152 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:02,000 measurements yourself if you don't have an accurate thermometer. Apparently you can, even just by holding 153 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:07,000 the spade. You can feel the heat from them and six o'clock in the evening. That's the time to go and do it 154 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:12,000 and try to find a newly opened space X. You'll know it is because of the smell 155 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:28,560 coming from it. So good luck with that.