{"id":2478,"date":"2014-07-22T18:12:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T23:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2014-07-23T10:50:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T15:50:32","slug":"moose-spit-de-toxifies-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/moose-spit-de-toxifies-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"Moose spit de-toxifies plants<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2418\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2788113139_0249341786_b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2418\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2418\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2788113139_0249341786_b-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"A new study shows that saliva produced by moose and reindeer reduces the growth of a fungus that lives inside grasses and makes them more toxic to herbivores. (Photo credit: Ray Dumas, via flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2788113139_0249341786_b-300x197.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2788113139_0249341786_b.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2418\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new study shows that saliva produced by moose and reindeer reduces the growth of a fungus that lives inside grasses and makes them more toxic to herbivores. (Photo credit: Ray Dumas, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rtdphotography\/2788113139\">flickr<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Moose and reindeer saliva may inhibit the growth of a toxic fungus that lives inside the grass known as red fescue. The researchers collected saliva from moose and reindeer from Canadian zoos, then applied it to grass that contained the toxic fungus. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Their results showed that fungus grew more slowly and in some cases produced fewer toxins when treated with saliva. While many plants &#8211; through their fungal partners &#8211; are known to produce toxins to deter herbivores, this the the first evidence that herbivores can actually fight back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org\/lookup\/doi\/10.1098\/rsbl.2014.0460\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0journal\u00a0<em>Biology Letters<\/em><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>July 22, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Andrew Tanentzap, University of Cambridge,\u00a0United Kingdom<\/span><\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"color: #222222;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Dawn Bazeley, York University, Ontario<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moose and reindeer saliva may inhibit the growth of a toxic fungus that lives inside the grass known as red fescue. The researchers collected saliva from moose and reindeer from Canadian zoos, then applied it to grass that contained the toxic fungus. Their results showed that fungus grew more slowly and in some cases produced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[39,174,170,113,917,1998,50],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-animal-behaviour","tag-animals","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-evolution","tag-flora","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2788113139_0249341786_b.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-DY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2487,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/2487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}