Winged Things
In nature, good ideas get repeated, even if they aren’t inherited. It’s called convergent evolution, and it means that successful adaptations can pop up multiple times even among distantly related species. For example, dolphins are mammals and sharks are cartilaginous fish, but they still share the same aerodynamic body plan that allows them to move quickly in water. Feathery birds and hairy bats have strikingly similar bone structures in their wings that helps them fly, and echidnas and hedgehogs are both roly-poly quilled creatures, despite their different lineages.
While these examples are all animal-based, there is at least one good instance of plants and animals developing the same wonderful adaptation: maple seeds!
Maple (Acer) seeds rely on the wind for dispersal. To aid them in flight, each seed flattens out on one end to a thin, papery wing. When released from a tree, the seeds, unbalanced with a heavy nut on one end, begin to rotate and generates lift. On a windy day in spring, you can watch massive fleets of these tiny propellers buzz through the air on a maiden voyage for fertile soil.
Amazingly, the same physical properties that allow these seed wings to fly instead of stalling out and plummeting to the ground are the same properties found in insect wings. As they cut through the air, both structures generate something known as a leading-edge vortex (LEV). The edge of the wing creates and traps a swirling mass of air known as a vortex. The vortex generates a low pressure region above the wing. The higher pressure below the wing results in a movement of air up. Voilà, we have lift!
It makes one wonder what other plant adaptations we could copy. I for one admire my peace lily’s ability to stay home all day basking in the sunlight.
Brian Rutter, PhD, is the cofounder of Hundredfold Video and plant biologist working for 2Blades at the University of Minnesota. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our “Sower Stories – Odd Facts About Plants” and video production tips in your inbox every month!
Works Cited:
Lentink, David, William B. Dickson, Johan L. Van Leeuwen, and Michael H. Dickinson. "Leading-edge vortices elevate lift of autorotating plant seeds." Science 324, no. 5933 (2009): 1438-1440.
