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Functional Surfaces in Biology III pp 121–138Cite as

Sucking the Oil: Adsorption Ability of Three-Dimensional Epicuticular Wax Coverages in Plants As a Possible Mechanism Reducing Insect Wet Adhesion

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Part of the book series: Biologically-Inspired Systems ((BISY,volume 10))

Abstract

Primary aerial surfaces of terrestrial plants are very often covered with three-dimensional epicuticular waxes. Such wax coverages play an important role in insect-plant interactions. Wax blooms have been experimentally shown in numerous previous studies to be impeding locomotion and reducing attachment of insects. Among the mechanisms responsible for these effects, a possible adsorption of insect adhesive fluid by highly porous wax coverage has been proposed (adsorption hypothesis). Recently, a great decrease in insect attachment force on artificial adsorbing materials was revealed in a few studies. However, adsorption ability of plant wax blooms was still not tested. Using a cryo scanning electron microscopy approach and high-speed video recordings of fluid drops behavior, followed by numerical analysis of experimental data, we show here that the three-dimensional epicuticular wax coverage in the waxy zone of Nepenthes alata pitcher adsorbs oil: we detected changes in the base, height, and volume of the oil drops. The wax layer thickness, differing in samples with untreated two-layered wax coverage and treated one-layered wax, did not significantly affect the drop behavior. These results provide strong evidence that three-dimensional plant wax coverages due to their adsorption capability are in general anti-adhesive for insects, which rely on wet adhesion.

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Acknowledgements

This book chapter is adapted from the publication Gorb, E.V. et al. Oil adsorption ability of three-dimensional epicuticular wax coverages in plants, Sci. Rep. 7, 45483; doi: 10.1038/srep45483 (2017). This work was partly supported by the CARBTRIB Project of The Leverhulme Trust (U. K.) to S. N. G. and E. V. G. and the Georg Forster Research Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany) to A. E. F. The authors acknowledge Alexander Kovalev (Kiel University, Germany) for his help in improving the MatLab program for the numerical analysis of experimental data and Lars Heepe (Kiel University, Germany) for useful discussions on adsorption phenomenon and for comments on the early version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Zoological Institute, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Elena V. Gorb, Philipp Hofmann, Alexander E. Filippov & Stanislav N. Gorb

  2. Department N5, Donetsk Institute for Physics and Engineering, Donetsk, Ukraine

    Alexander E. Filippov

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  1. Elena V. Gorb
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  2. Philipp Hofmann
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  4. Stanislav N. Gorb
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Correspondence to Elena V. Gorb .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Zoological Institute, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Stanislav N. Gorb

  2. Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Zoological Institute, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Elena V. Gorb

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Gorb, E.V., Hofmann, P., Filippov, A.E., Gorb, S.N. (2017). Sucking the Oil: Adsorption Ability of Three-Dimensional Epicuticular Wax Coverages in Plants As a Possible Mechanism Reducing Insect Wet Adhesion. In: Gorb, S., Gorb, E. (eds) Functional Surfaces in Biology III. Biologically-Inspired Systems, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74144-4_6

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