Vampire plants good for food chain

London: Parasitic "vampire" plants that attach onto and derive nutrients from another living plant may benefit the abundance and diversity of surrounding vegetation and animal life, reveals a new study. By altering the densities of the hemi-parasite (a parasitic plant that also photosynthesises) Rhinanthus minor, ecologists assessed the impact of the "vampire" plant on the biodiversity of a species-rich, semi-natural grassland.

Photosynthesis is a process used by plants to convert light energy from the Sun into chemical energy that can be later released to fuel the organisms' activities. They compared the plant and invertebrate communities in areas where Rhinanthus minor was removed, left at natural densities, or increased in abundance. The manipulation of a single sub-dominant plant species causes substantial changes in the abundance and diversity of organisms across four tropic levels, the authors said.