Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
  • 5/13/2025
The fifth programme explores the alliances formed between the animal and plant worlds. It examines the ways in which plants live together and rely on each other. Whether living together in harmony, relying on each other for homes, protection or food, or living off each other, by strangling or otherwise destroying each other in a bid to survive.

Category

🐳
Animals
Transcript
00:30The Great Barrier Reef, Australia, at night, I'm surrounded by corals.
01:00They do look extraordinarily like plants, branching into fans and twigs and bushes.
01:12At night, the similarity is particularly marked.
01:16All over their stony surface, tiny buds open into what look like flowers.
01:21But these little structures don't behave in a flower-like way.
01:48They seize and eat any edible particle that drifts by.
01:55They are clearly animals.
01:58But even so, they look like plants.
02:01Why?
02:01It was only comparatively recently that we understood the answer in full detail.
02:10And it only becomes evident when the sun comes up.
02:14For then, the corals change their behavior in a radical way.
02:17Corals, like plants, must have light.
02:35They can't grow if the water is cloudy or the depths so great that the rays of the sun can't reach it.
02:41And these resemblances are not just coincidences.
02:46If I go back underwater now, now that it's day and the sun is up,
02:51I shall see that many of these corals are feeding in a way that is not like animals at all.
02:56A way that is quite different.
02:58Now, the plant-like form of the coral is even more obvious.
03:14The tiny rosettes of groping arms have withdrawn into their stony sockets on the surface of the coral skeleton.
03:20But they're still within the reach of sunlight.
03:25And within their tiny bodies are microscopic green plants, algae.
03:31And they're feeding by making starches and sugars.
03:34But the corals are feeding too.
03:42They have partly digested the walls of these captive plants.
03:46And 80% of the food the algae make leaks out of them and is consumed by the coral.
03:52Having dined on meat all night, the corals are now getting their vegetables.
03:57The corals provide their internal gardens with the best possible light by growing into these shapes.
04:07Which is just what bushes do for their food factories, their leaves, when they grow in the same way.
04:15The coral algae do get some benefit from this arrangement.
04:19These glassy waters are very poor in nitrates and phosphates which algae need.
04:23Those substances, however, are in the corals' waste products.
04:29So the algae, safe inside these rocky skeletons, can absorb their fertiliser directly and live in waters that otherwise could not support them.
04:41Other animals on the reef also cultivate similar gardens.
04:45Giant clams keep their algae not inside their cells, but in special compartments just beneath the surface of the mantle that form long brown lines.
05:00To give them the light they need, the clam has to open its shell wide, so exposing itself to danger.
05:07But the blue spots are sensitive to light and are able to warn it of any unexpected shadows that might indicate an approaching threat.
05:18A few jellyfish maintain algal populations as well.
05:23These, in a lake on the Pacific island of Palau, pamper theirs in an extraordinary way.
05:29This lake is cut off from the sea by ramparts of coral limestone, and there are very few fish here.
05:41So these jellyfish can't live, like most of their relations, by catching animal prey.
05:46And their tentacles no longer carry stings for hunting.
05:50Instead, they have been converted into allotments for algae.
05:54The lake is surrounded by a tall forest growing on the limestone wall.
06:07The sun doesn't rise above the trees until several hours after dawn.
06:15But at last, its rays strike the water at one end of the lake.
06:19And there, several million jellyfish have assembled, awaiting the sunlight.
06:30As the sun moves across the sky, so the vast fleet travels slowly towards the other side of the lake, keeping always in the sunshine.
06:40So reluctant are the jellyfish to leave the light, that, on the edge of the shadow, they crowd together in a tightly packed shoal.
06:51But without stings, the jellyfish are defenceless.
07:12Now, if they blunder into the arms of a sea anemone, they have no way of repelling the tentacles.
07:18They are eaten.
07:20The daytime voyage across the lake is not the only action the jellyfish take to nurture their algae.
07:43Come the evening, they swim down to the bottom.
07:47There, the water is murky with decaying vegetable matter and sludge.
07:52And there, during the night, the algae absorb the fertiliser they need.
07:57That animals should sometimes kidnap plants is not surprising.
08:08All animals, including ourselves, have always exploited plants in one way or another, directly or indirectly.
08:17Perhaps it's more surprising that sometimes things are the other way round.
08:21Sometimes it's plants that keep animals for the plant's benefit.
08:26Here, in the forest of Borneo, the rattan cane does just that.
08:34No plant benefits from being eaten.
08:37But most can't do much to stop it.
08:40Not so the rattan.
08:42Watch and listen.
08:43Out of a nest around the stem of the rattan, close to its tip, come angry ants.
08:53They're making this throbbing hiss by banging their heads synchronously against the rattan stem.
09:09These ants have, oh, have a particularly vicious bite, as I well know.
09:20Ow!
09:21As I well know.
09:23And I certainly try and keep clear of them when I'm in the forest.
09:27And I'm quite sure that plant-eating animals do too.
09:31So when I, or they, hear this alarming noise, we do our best to steer clear of what's making it.
09:38And the rattan's tip, its most vulnerable part, remains undamaged.
09:52In Africa, there are a great number of very determined plant-eaters.
09:57Acacias protect themselves with spines, but they're by no means a total defence.
10:11Some animals, it's true, are put off by them, but others, like the giraffe, seem able to ignore them.
10:18But a few acacias, like the rattan, have recruited ants as guards and provide them with special barracks, the swollen bases of their thorns.
10:42One nibble from the giraffe is enough to bring out the defenders.
10:52They attack the animal's tongue and lips.
11:06Eventually, the irritation becomes too much.
11:16Even though there are a lot of good leaves left on the tree, the giraffe moves away.
11:20Several different acacias employ ants as defenders.
11:29As well as providing accommodation, the trees pay their security staff with a sugary nectar that wells up from little glands on their stems.
11:38This South American species rewards its ants even more extravagantly.
11:51It not only produces nectar for them, but packets of protein, little beads, that grow on the tip of its leaflets.
12:00But these are not for the adults.
12:08They're special baby food, which the workers take back to their larvae.
12:13These infants are housed in the swollen bases of the thorns.
12:27These infants are housed in the swollen bases of the thorns.
12:31The worker tucks the bead into a special pouch just beneath the larva's jaws.
12:53Whenever the youngster wants a meal, it just bends its head down and takes a nibble.
12:58In return for these lavish provisions and amenities, the ants mount a very energetic defense of the acacia, rushing to attack intruders.
13:21Any insect that lands on the tree hoping to nibble a leaf or two is soon dealt with.
13:28The ants even defend their tree against rival plants.
13:35Regular patrols go down the trunk and range for a long way over the surrounding earth.
13:43Seedlings that sprout within this area, so threatening to take some of the acacia's sustenance, are severely mauled.
13:50The ants aren't eating this plant, they're chewing it to death.
13:56The tendrils of any plant that reach over and try to climb onto the acacia and try to climb onto the acacia get similar treatment.
14:03Clearly, it's well worth the acacia's while to provide food and lodging for such a valiant and dedicated defense force.
14:10This plant is evidently a force of the acacia, which has to be found in the area of the acacia, which is a very rare and rare.
14:19It's very rare for the acacia, but it is very rare for the acacia.
14:22It is very rare for the acacia.
14:23It is very rare for the acacia to provide food and lodging for such a valiant and dedicated defense force.
14:29This plant is even more accommodating.
14:42It has inflated most of its stem into an ant mansion.
14:54It grows in New Guinea, clinging to the branches of other trees,
14:58and it's called, with good reason, an ant plant.
15:03Ants are continually running about on its surface
15:06on their way to or returning from a hunt for insects.
15:13The accommodation the plant provides for the ants
15:16is truly spacious and excellently suited to their requirements.
15:22Immediately within its walls, a network of corridors
15:25ensures that the whole structure is air-conditioned,
15:28and essential for any well-appointed residents in the tropics.
15:46Farther inside, there are the nurseries,
15:49smooth-walled chambers where the larvae are reared.
15:53And there are also special refuse tips.
16:07It's here that the workers dump the droppings of the colony.
16:10These chambers are not only middens,
16:19they are mortuaries,
16:20the last resting place of members of the colony
16:24that die within the mansion.
16:25The chambers in which these bodies lie
16:38have walls covered with warts.
16:41These absorb nutrients from the rotting piles.
16:44This is how the plant collects its rent.
16:47Fungi may seem unlikely,
17:01even dangerous organisms with which to form a partnership.
17:06After all, they do feed on plants.
17:11Fungi are neither animals nor plants.
17:14They're fundamentally different from either.
17:18They can dissolve all kinds of substances,
17:21rock, metal, even plastic.
17:24But most notably, they consume the bodies of plants.
17:28And these bracket fungi eat trees.
17:32We tend to notice them only
17:34when they produce spectacular structures like these,
17:37their fruiting bodies.
17:38Spores fall from their underside in astronomical numbers,
17:44millions a minute.
17:45So fungal spores exist pretty well everywhere.
17:52They may enter a tree through a wound in the bark.
17:55They then develop into threads that slowly move inwards
17:59and start to digest the wood.
18:01The tree now, as we would see it,
18:03has a rotten core.
18:08Eventually, after tens or even hundreds of years,
18:16a tree may have its interior
18:17completely eaten away by the fungal threads,
18:21as has happened to this one.
18:22But that is not as disastrous as you might think,
18:25because the fungus only consumes dead tissue.
18:28It leaves the living tissue completely untouched.
18:31And it survives as a kind of out-of-cylinder
18:34from which all new growth comes.
18:36And that's all that the tree needs.
18:45So, although this 800-year-old oak
18:49in Winter Great Park
18:51is completely hollow,
18:54it's still thriving.
18:55Every year it puts out a fresh crown of green leaves,
18:59and I guess it's got many more years
19:01of life in it yet.
19:06The change of form brings a positive advantage
19:10to the old tree.
19:12A hollow cylinder is better able to absorb great shocks
19:16than a solid pillar.
19:19Trees standing out in the open, as they do in parks,
19:22can get severely buffeted by stormy winds.
19:26And it's not unusual after a gale
19:28to see young oaks uprooted,
19:30whereas older ones,
19:31with the age and the girth to become hollow,
19:34are still standing.
19:40The surgery performed by the fungus
19:43brings other advantages too.
19:45It enables the oak to reclaim
19:47some of its lifetime savings.
19:49Roots develop on the inside of the hollow trunk.
19:53They grow down into the ground within the cylinder,
19:56and there collect nutriment
19:58that the fungus has released from the wood
20:00as it digested it.
20:02And that is not the only goodness to be found here.
20:08Animals have come to live in the hollow tree.
20:10Owls may be roosting in its upper parts.
20:14Bats hanging from its walls.
20:16Its lodgers, having fed out in the woodland,
20:23drop their dung within the hollow.
20:26So the tree receives food from places
20:28that otherwise would be far beyond its reach.
20:36So, thanks to its fungal partner,
20:39an oak often has an old age
20:41that is both robust and well-fed.
20:43But fungi bring food to many plants
20:53throughout their lives.
20:54And that is particularly so
20:56in forests such as this one
20:58on the northwest coast of America.
21:03Even the tallest of these giant spruces,
21:05totally healthy and in the prime of its life,
21:08is dependent for its health and strength
21:10on a fungus.
21:14Its partner is down here.
21:22This is a rootlet
21:23through which the tree absorbs its nourishment.
21:26But wrapped round it
21:27are a mass of tiny white threads.
21:30They belong to the fungus
21:32and are part of a dense mesh
21:34which vastly increases the surface area
21:36through which the tree can absorb water and nutrients.
21:42The partnership starts at the very beginning of a tree's life,
21:45when a fungus living in the soil
21:47entwines itself around the seedling's infant roots.
21:50Indeed, seedlings that have the misfortune
21:53to germinate in the soil without fungi
21:55are likely to starve to death.
21:59But if there's a fungus to convey food to it,
22:02the seedling will get a good start.
22:07And that connection is never broken.
22:09An adult tree is able to collect
22:12nutrient-laden moisture from fungal threads,
22:14suck it along its roots,
22:16up the piping in its trunk
22:18and into its leaves.
22:19and there combine it
22:21with that other essential raw material,
22:23carbon dioxide gas,
22:25to make food.
22:35So trees, including giants like this one,
22:39can't grow without the help
22:41of tiny organisms in the soil.
22:43Organisms that we don't even notice
22:45until they fruit.
22:47And that may not happen
22:48more than two or three days in twenty years.
23:09This is how the flyer Garrick uses its share
23:12of the profits from the partnership.
23:17About a quarter of the sugars and starches
23:32produced by the tree and its leaves
23:34travel back down the trunk
23:36and into the ground
23:37to feed its multitude of fungal partners.
23:40Fungi fruit so briefly, and often so rarely,
23:55each in its own season,
23:57it's difficult to appreciate how widespread they are
23:58and how varied.
23:59There are over a thousand different species
24:00in the coniferous forests.
24:01Although trees do have preferences,
24:02any one individual may have links
24:03with up to two hundred different partners.
24:04Partnership with fungi is not limited to trees.
24:07Many smaller plants are also dependent upon them.
24:09And none more so than those most glamorous of plants.
24:10Orchids.
24:12Orchids.
24:13Orchids.
24:14Orchids.
24:15Orchids.
24:16Orchids.
24:17Orchids.
24:18Orchids.
24:19Orchids.
24:20Orchids.
24:21Orchids.
24:26Orchid.
24:28Orchids.
24:29plants are also dependent upon them and none more so than those most glamorous of plants, orchids.
24:43It seems paradoxical that such opulent and flamboyant blooms as these
24:48should be totally dependent upon the help of drab thread-like organisms wrapped around their roots.
24:59Most plants provision their seeds with stores of food to fuel germination and the first stages
25:14of growth but not these orchids. This is an orchid seed capsule and here
25:24is orchid seed so fine it's blowing away in the air.
25:29Minute seeds like this have always been extremely difficult to get to germinate and infuriatingly
25:35the seed from some of the most dazzling and rare of orchids wouldn't germinate at all.
25:41And then scientists tackled the problem.
25:44They found that many orchids have their own special fungal partner.
25:51They devise methods of isolating that fungus and then culturing it with the orchid seed.
25:57Under the right conditions, the two strike up their partnership immediately.
26:02The fungus extracts nutriment from the culture medium in a way that the orchid can't do for itself
26:17and supplies it to the young plant.
26:31Within a month, the fungus has invaded the seed and started conveying nutrient to it.
26:51The young seedling is well on its way to becoming a vigorous plant.
27:07You could argue that it is the orchid which is the dominant member of this partnership.
27:15It is, after all, the one we can see with our naked eye.
27:18But there are plant-fungus relationships in which the balance, if anything, is the other way.
27:26It's the fungus which determines the shape into which the partnership grows.
27:31One of those shapes is flat and plate-like, but in order to see the two partners,
27:36you have to look at it through very high magnification,
27:39such as provided by a scanning electron microscope like this.
27:44This is a section through one of those plate-like partnerships.
27:48Here is the top, which is formed entirely by the fungus.
27:52These threads are part of the fungus, and this sphere here is the plant.
27:57To see just how intimate their relationship is, you have to look at them on an even greater magnification.
28:04This picture is magnified 10,000 times.
28:07Here are the fungal threads, and this is the plant, the alga, from which they are getting their sustenance.
28:27Together, the two different organisms form one of the most widely distributed of living structures,
28:33lichens.
28:39The partners operate so closely together that each pairing is given a single name,
28:44and there are over 13,000 of them.
29:03They not only form these hard skins and curling crusts, some lichens grow into little branched bushes.
29:14And very successful organisms they are too.
29:29They come into their own in the harshest of conditions.
29:33No grass can grow on these arid slopes here on the edge of the Namid desert in southern Africa.
29:40This extraordinary orange colour is produced entirely by a carpet of lichen.
29:52It can get so hot here that it's painful to put your hand on rock,
29:56and there's no relief with a shower of rain, for it hardly ever falls.
30:01Yet 29 species of lichen flourish here.
30:06The red one is particularly successful.
30:09One of the functions of the fungus is to absorb moisture and deliver it to the algae.
30:28But if there's no moisture, then the whole organism simply shrivels and becomes brittle.
30:33And that's what's happened to this here.
30:37But for this lichen, salvation is going to come from a very surprising source.
30:47The sea lies only a mile or so away.
30:50A cold current sweeps up the coast from the south.
30:54The hot air rising from the desert pulls in cold air from the sea, and the mixture produces fog.
31:10The moisture condenses as droplets on the lichen's branches.
31:14It's swiftly absorbed by the fungal skin and conveyed to the alga within.
31:19And suddenly and miraculously, the desiccated branches turn green.
31:49But even in the best circumstances, lichen grow only very slowly.
32:05Often only a millimetre or so a year.
32:09One place shows vividly and accurately just how slowly that is.
32:14A churchyard.
32:14The lichens, with their ability to live on bare rock, flourish on the tombstones.
32:26The dates of the inscriptions can tell us exactly when the bare stone surface was first exposed to
32:32the elements and became available for colonisation by lichens.
32:35Some of these blotches, only an inch or so across, may be centuries old.
32:54Lichens also grow in undisturbed ancient forests such as those on the Pacific coast of North America.
33:01Trees here may live five or six hundred years, but well before they've reached such an advanced age,
33:10they have usually been colonised by different kinds of lichens that hang in great tufts
33:15and blankets from their branches.
33:28So, plants form intimate partnerships with members of the other great kingdoms of life.
33:42In tropical forests, with members of the animal kingdom, particularly,
33:47ants and other insects.
33:49Here, in the great coniferous forests of North America, partnerships with fungi are particularly common.
33:57Ranging from those that produce these lichens dangling from the boughs of this great spruce tree,
34:03down to the tangle of tiny threads meshed around the roots of the tree 250 feet below me.
34:11And there are also partnerships within the plant kingdom, between plant and plant.
34:17Some are just simple.
34:19These mosses and ferns, which use the spruce tree simply as a perch.
34:26But there are some partnerships between plant and plant that are much more intimate.
34:32This is a mistletoe.
34:34It can only exist in partnership with a tree, for it has no roots of its own.
34:39But this is a very one-sided relationship.
34:42The mistletoe has green leaves, so it can manufacture food,
34:46but it draws all the liquid it needs from the tree onto which it's fastened itself.
34:51The tree gets nothing from the arrangement.
34:54The mistletoe, in short, is a parasite.
34:59The mistletoe family has over a thousand species.
35:02Here in Australia alone there are 75, so many and so widely dispersed,
35:08that somewhere or another there is always one in fruit.
35:11And that makes it possible for one bird to eat almost nothing else.
35:17The mistletoe bird knows exactly how to extract the fruit.
35:32The bird digests the fleshy coating of the seed with extraordinary speed.
35:43It takes less than half an hour to travel from beak to bottom.
35:48The seed, when it emerges, is still phenomenally sticky and has to be wiped off,
35:52which suits the mistletoe very well.
36:07The seed, when it comes out, remains attached to the bird's behind by a long sticky thread.
36:13And the bird has to have a special technique for breaking it.
36:29Every time it needs to detach a seed, it has to perform this little dance.
36:34It's this stickiness that is the key to the mistletoe's success in getting from one tree to another.
37:02Once parked on a living branch, the seed quickly plugs itself in.
37:17With a connection to its host's liquid supply,
37:20it can build leaves and start making food for itself.
37:36This is another mistletoe.
37:39It grows only in Western Australia and it flowers in December,
37:43which is why it's known locally as the Christmas tree.
37:47I know it's a mistletoe because of the character of its flowers,
37:51and it does have green fleshy leaves.
37:53But from other points of view, it's very unlike other mistletoes.
37:57Most obviously because this is a freestanding tree that doesn't seem to be parasitising anything.
38:03But in fact, it gives us a very good idea as to how parasitism might have started in this family.
38:11Have a look at its roots.
38:12This is the root that belongs to the Christmas tree.
38:27And this root belongs to another completely different bush nearby.
38:32And the Christmas tree has encircled its other root with a white ring.
38:37It has plugged itself in to the root system of another plant.
38:41And it gets all its water and minerals in that way.
38:46And it's not at all fussy about what kind of plant it parasitises.
38:51Grasses, sedges, small bushes, big trees, gum trees, cycads, it will go for the lot.
38:59But at least the mistletoes have leaves for making some food for themselves.
39:04A few parasitic plants don't even have that.
39:10These are the germinating seeds of Dodda.
39:13They have to find their host within a few days or they will die.
39:17A favourite target is the nettle.
39:31Well armed with stings it may be, but they are no defence against Dodda.
39:36The seedlings can detect whether a nettle stem is feeble or well nourished.
39:46And they pick their victim with care.
39:48This is a strong, healthy one, good to feed on.
39:56In goes a nozzle.
39:58The Dodda sucks the nettle sap, which then fuels its growth and its hunt for another victim.
40:16The Dodda is a relative of the bindweed, convolvulus, and it climbs in the same sort of way.
40:40The Dodda is a good kind.
40:52The Dodda has no way.
40:54The Dodda has no way.
40:55They make the help.
40:56The Dodda has no way.
40:57The Dodda has no way.
40:58The Dodda is a big side of the rame.
41:00The Dodda is a very small gathering.
41:01The Dodda has no way.
41:02The JDR is a large number of other animals.
41:03The Dodda has no way.
41:04Wherever the feeding seems good, the parasite inserts a tube
41:08and draws off the nettle's sap.
41:23Once it's fully established,
41:25drinking from the nettle through hundreds of connections,
41:28the dodder is siphoning off enough nourishment from its victim
41:31to enable it to flower.
41:38Here we go,
41:40let's get back to the arrow.
41:46The arrow is Before WeWork.
41:50The arrow is about to present and we'll see you in the next corner.
41:52The arrow is called The Racket.
41:58It's called the Racket.
42:01It's called the Racket.
42:04Eventually, the whole bed of nettles is overwhelmed by writhing daughter stems.
42:34The dodder is completely parasitic, getting all it needs from another plant, but the relationship
42:56between parasite and host can be even closer.
43:00Here in the forests of Borneo, there is an enormous parasite whose relationship with its host
43:05is so intimate that the parasite is invisible for most of the year, so it's not easy to find.
43:30This is the first that anyone or anything sees of it.
43:43The bud is obviously coming from this root, but the root doesn't belong to this.
43:48The root is part of this great vine.
44:00Inside the massive trunk of this vine has a multitude of hair-like filaments.
44:05They don't belong to the vine, but to a parasite called Rafflesia.
44:10Rafflesia has no stem, no leaves, and never will have.
44:15It feeds entirely on the sap produced by the vine.
44:19The only time Rafflesia emerges into the outside world is in order to flower.
44:24But that bud was just a young one, maybe three weeks old.
44:28If I follow the root of the vine, maybe I'll find more.
44:41Two more, but still small.
44:45A bigger one.
44:57And this one looks as though it might well open tonight.
45:00One more, but still tiny, I don't mind.
45:14Only one could've been crossed between the vine.
45:19By the time dawn comes and the first rays of the sun filter down into the forest,
45:44the flower is almost fully open.
45:49Rafflesia produces the largest single flower on earth, a big one can be three feet across.
46:12The surface of the warty petals look a little like that of a putrefying corpse.
46:17There's a faint smell of rotten fish, and the huge flower quickly attracts those that
46:23find much of their food in carrion, blowflies.
46:24In the bottom of the cup, a great disc covered in spikes stands on a pedestal.
46:31The flies go in to investigate and crawl all over it.
46:38Hanging from the underside of the disc are droplets of liquid pollen.
46:45As the flies explore, they touch the droplets and get saddled with a dab of pollen.
46:52This will only benefit Rafflesia if the fly is able to find another of these very little
46:59birds.
47:00flowers fully open in the forest to which it can deliver its load.
47:07Rafflesia produces the biggest single flower in the world.
47:14But why, when all it needs to attract are flies?
47:15Plants, like other living organisms, can only afford to spend a limited amount of food on
47:21reproduction.
47:22But Rafflesia does not, after all, earn its food.
47:23It takes it straight from the vine.
47:29Provided the vine is not fatally injured, there seems to be no limit to the amount Rafflesia
47:30may extract.
47:31Maybe an unearned income, may be an unearned income.
47:33If they are a resource for the vine is not fatally injured and they are not fatally
47:38sick.
47:39It takes up all over the Jahraic animal.
47:40There may not be a loss for the living bird in the world, but why when all it needs
47:43to attract are flies?
47:44Plants, like other living organisms, can only afford to spend a limited amount of food
47:48on reproduction.
47:49But Rafflesia does not, after all, earn its food.
47:51It takes it straight from the vine.
47:54Provided the vine is not fatally injured, there seems to be no limit to the amount Rafflesia
47:57may extract.
47:59Maybe an unearned income in the plant world, as elsewhere,
48:04can lead to extravagance on a truly monumental scale.
48:29Satsang with Mooji

Recommended