All of us know the feelings that occur when an illness begins. You feel tired and your muscles ache. Your head may hurt and you feel warm. Our bodies respond quite quickly to infections. Fever is one way our bodies use to limit the microbial infections we acquire in the highways and byways of life.
A recent article in the August issue of Nature Biotechnology titled "Presymptomatic visualization of plant virus interactions by thermography" demonstrated that plants have fevers when they are ill also. The researchers used infrared photography to detect when tobacco plants were successfully infected with Tobacco Mosaic virus. Infrared photography is used to detect differences in temperature. A hotter area will appear yellow and a cooler area will appear red. Refer to the image below:
To do this the scientists infected the tobacco plants with tobacco mosaic virus and then every 30 minutes took infrared photographs. They found that the areas on the plant's leaves that had been infected were 0.3 to 0.4 degrees Celsius warmer than areas on the same leaves that had not been infected by the virus.
This is not a huge difference in temperature however it was reproducible and the scientists could detect the temperature changes up to 8 hours before any noticeable viral damage to the plant had occurred.
The researchers went on to demonstrate how this occurs in these plants. After the leaves are infected by the virus the pores in the leaves close. These pores allow moisture to be released from the leaves and when the moisture evaporates it cools the plant leaves. We do this too. It is especially noticeable when we exercise. We perspire and when the moisture evaporates it helps to cool our bodies. When the infected portions of the plant's leaves close their pores no moisture escapes to cool the leaves and the temperature in that area goes up. A plant fever has begun.
This technique could be useful in detecting plant diseases before destruction of the plant begins. It would also be useful in detecting plants that are resistant to various plant diseases in breeding programs.
If you happen to have an infrared camera lying around and you also have a few plants growing around your house you might want to take their temperature. You never know when a plant can get sick. Unfortunately, aspirin doesn't help plants like it does us.
Take Care and Think Microbiologically!
 |
Go To Page: 1
