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Scientists Found That Bean Plants Can Summon Wasps to Fight Their Battles

Researchers found that the plants can identify caterpillar attacks and summon wasps to the scene to protect them.

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You have to be careful who you mess with in life. Someone might seem easy to take advantage of, but you never know who they’re connected to or what kind of muscle they’ve got backing them up to fight their battles for them. That’s essentially what common bean plants are doing when caterpillars start chewing through their leaves. According to new research detailed in Science Advances, the plants release a chemical distress signal that summons predatory wasps to come handle the problem.

Researchers studying bean fields in Oaxaca, Mexico, recently discovered how all of this works. It revolves around something called the inceptin receptor, or INR, a........

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