Cyanide - Deadly for Animals, but a Stimulant for Plant Seeds to Germinate

Cyanide is famous as a poison used in suicide capsules and murders. But recent research has shown that it can be beneficial for plants and helps transform the Australian bush damaged by wildfires by stimulating seeds to germinate.

Fire-ravaged landscapes spring to new life with native plants and flowers, and new seedling. But scientists have long been puzzled as what causes the dormant seeds to suddenly spring to life. The answer for some plants is Cyanide.

The finding could help find new ways to regenerate native bushland after major fires have ravaged the landscapes and for mine site regeneration.

For many years the actual heat created by bushfires or the chemical residues in the burnt ash remnants were thought to trigger dormant native seeds to germinate.

Many people regularly heated seeds in the over or burnt banksia cones under the griller or in a fire to stimulate them to germinate. Simply planting the seeds of many native plants does not work. The plants are so adapted to regular fires that their germination is tied to fires and burning.

Researchers discovered that part of the magic lay in the smoke rather than the heat, flames or ash.

In 2004, a team of Australian Scientists, studied the thousands of chemicals found in the smoke from bushfires and isolated the one active ingredient found to stimulate seed germination.

This substance they called 'karrikinolide using a local Aboriginal word for smoke, 'karrik'. This substance is release when cellulose burns

However they found that several native species did not respond and this created problems in growing the plants for the flower industry.

The famous green and red kangaroo paw was one of the plants that was not stimulated by karrikinolide or to any other specific stimulant.

After five long years of research a second active compound was finally found.

It was a substance called glyceronitrile, which was found to releases tiny amounts of cyanide when the substance is dissolved in water after rainfall events.

The finding from the latest study have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

The researchers found when plants burn, they produce glyceronitrile that accumulates in the soil. After rain it hydrolyses and release cyanide into the water.

The researches found that cyanide was the active stimulant and that it was an important cue in landscape regeneration after fires.

It was effective in a range of worldwide habitats apart from the Australian bush.

Many terrestrial ecosystems throughout the world feature cycles of fire and regeneration.

It appears that cyanide has had a role in shaping the evolution of landscapes, land plants and whole ecosystems via this stimulation mechanism.

Most of the planet, and for most of the time during the evolution of plants rainforest was the dominant forest type and those rainforests do not have regular fires.

Species that adapted to the drier landscapes and times using chemical cues for germination would have had an advantage.

Plants with seeds that germinate in response to water would have struggled to survive under the canopy of existing plants.

Other plants that developed fire-triggers would have had the advantage of quickly germinating in the burnt-out areas using the extensive seed banks that had built up in the soil during the period between major fires.

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