Non-polar Compounds Facilitate Movement of Chemicals

Biological Strategy

Ground beetles

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Protect From Animals

Animals–organisms that range from microscopic to larger than a bus–embody a wide variety of harms to living systems, including other animals. They threaten through predation, herbivory, defense, and parasitism, and they compete for resources such as water, nutrients, and space. Any given living organism commonly faces threats from a variety of animals, requiring strategies that effectively defend from each. Trout and other bony fish, for example, escape predators by having scales made of very thin, flake-like pieces of bone covered with slippery mucus. They also have behavioral strategies such as camouflage, fast swimming, and twisting and turning to achieve release from a predator’s grip.

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Modify Solubility (Dissolving, Emulsifying, Precipitating, Crystallizing)

Increasing or decreasing the solubility of chemical constituents is one way of managing a host of metabolic processes including material synthesis. For example, organisms that produce calciferous shells utilize dissolved calcium and carbonate ions, but when the time is right, they raise the pH to create alkaline conditions that trigger calcium carbonate to precipitate out of solution as an insoluble solid.

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Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

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Defense chemicals secreted by Ardistomis schaumii beetles can pass directly through the exoskeletons of their foes with the aid of special solvents.

Delivering defensive chemicals to a foe is a challenge for all organisms that synthesize such chemicals. Many strategies have evolved in nature including aerosolization, hypodermic injection, etc. Ardistomis schaumii, a species of ground beetle, have developed a delivery method that involves dissolving the defensive chemicals in a solvent called limonene. Limonene, a non-polar solvent, is somehow able to facilitate the transport of polar defensive chemicals through the non-polar exoskeleton of predatory arthropods. Though the precise chemical mechanism is still unclear, the advantage is obvious; A. schaumii can deliver repellants directly into the bodies of their foes rather than attacking sensory organs like many repellants.

This summary was contributed by Ashley Meyers