You would think that a plant scientist would go home to a farm, but Neil Stewart used to work with potatoes, not human cadres.
Influenced by environmental pollutants, Stuart was on a tour at the University of Tennessee’s ‘Body Farm’ – formally known as the Anthropology Research Facility – where forensic anthropologists study the effects of decomposition on specially designated land on a few acres.
He was a little insolent.
“I tried to distract myself from the body and looked at the forest and some shrubs,” Stuart told Science Alert, “then wondered if the native plants grown on the site could react to human decomposition and possibly enable probe from the air.”
It was something he had never thought of studying before, but it seems plausible. When a human remains decomposed on the ground or in the soil, it enters a natural cycle of decomposition that feeds the surrounding soil with microbes and chemicals.
If these nutrients get into the roots of nearby plants, Stuart thinks what is happening underground can change the appearance of plants above – perhaps significantly.
One year after visiting the farm, Stewart joins a team of other biologists and ethnologists to find out if these ‘islands of disintegration’ really exist, and if so, how that knowledge can be used to find people missing in the desert. Whether or not. Human remains.
A newly published editorial in the journal Trends in Plant Science Details of his ideas for the wider scientific community.
The authors write, “We have suggested that forest trees and undersatter invasive plants may be helpful in pointing out sites of suspected human degradation,” the authors write.
“If we can determine the soil from the main cadaver for the plant’s signaling parameters, the plant can help forensic teams in the search for missing people using remote sensing technology.”
Stuart doesn’t really know what they’ll find, but he expects to learn a lot about the cadres, their microbiomes, soil microbiomes, and the interactions between plants.
He thinks the most obvious result would be a large release of nitrogen into the soil from the destroying islands, especially in the summer, when human decomposition could occur in a matter of weeks.
“Depending on how quickly the plant reacts to the flow of nitrogen, it can change the color and reflection of the leaves,” Stuart suspects.
According to editorial estimates, 3-square-meter island nutrients could penetrate nearby vegetation, providing it with 50 times more seasonal nitrogen fertilizer than usual.
This can have a ‘greening effect’, as leaf nitrogen is associated with increased chlorophyll, a green plant pigment needed for photosynthesis.
Now, however, the method of these disintegration islands is imaginary. Scientists have not yet investigated whether decaying human remains can cause observable changes in plants, if we can detect them with remote sensors such as satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles.
Previous research suggests that 17 of the 18 elements needed for plant growth provide carcasses, but even if plants contain these elements, and if these changes were observable at a distance, more research work needs to be done before we can apply this idea. To find the body of a missing person in a densely forested area.
One of the biggest challenges, researchers say, is that human decomposition will separate the islands from other animals, often used for cadaver decay research.
In this case, the human diet, which includes artificial traces of drugs and food preservatives, may be a good differentiating factor.
Plant leaves have cell walls, which are made of lignin, which is a strong fluorescent, and lignin is made from amino acids, which are transported to the plant through its roots. Thus, the team argues, it is conceivable that amino acids from human fossils can be detected by leaf fluorescence.
“One idea is that if we had a specific person who was missing, we would say, heavy smokers, they might have a chemical profile that could stimulate some specific response of the plant to make it easier to find the plant. . “
Cadmium is a chemical that complexes with natural amino acids, and is more common in cigarette smokers. It is easily absorbed by plants, and is shown to affect cells that contain chlorophyll.
Thus, the plant, which once covered missing corpses, will one day be able to help uncover them.
Such a reality would still be years away. At this point, Stuart acknowledges that the concept has “brought too much yet,” but he and a team from Body Farm are already setting up first experiments to test the effect of cadavers on plants.
“We’ve actually created a complete plant imager that can analyze fluorescence signatures,” says Stewart.
“But the first step would be to make a fairly large scale, looking at individual leaves and measuring plants to see how their reflection or fluorescence changes over time when the plants are close to human remains.”
At the moment, the team is trying to learn how plants react to human remains and whether different types of trees and shrubs react in similar ways.
Exotic invasive and weedy plants can be a good place to start, as they have extensive root systems and are generally very responsive to changing environmental conditions such as water, sunlight and manure.
Famous hardwood trees, with their extensive root systems and wide canopy, are also potentially good candidates for further research and aerial surveys.
“While very little nuclear biology has been done on invasive species in body farms, I bet they will respond quickly.” Stuart told ScienceAlt.
“It would be interesting if the native trees would respond similarly – say, the color change in the leaves – even slower. That would be nice.”
The paper was published in Trends in Plant Science.
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