Insect attachment on waxy plant surfaces: the effect of pad contamination by different waxes

• Elena V. Gorb and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2024, 15, 385–395, doi:10.3762/bjnano.15.35

• previous investigation of twelve waxy plant surfaces verified the contaminating ability of plant waxes, which differed among test plant species depending on the micromorphology, primarily dimensions and shape, of the wax projections [34]. The effect of geometrical parameters of wax projections on their

• not affect or impaired insect attachment only for a very short period of time [7]. The follow-up study on the contamination of insect pads by plant waxes explained the above effect in a more quantitative way [34]. The aim of this study was to experimentally examine how the contamination of insect

• previously reported findings in many plant and insect species [4][5][6]. The contaminating ability of plant waxes has been previously shown for many plants [8][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Our study clearly revealed the effect of pad contamination by plant wax material as an important mechanism of insect

Design of a biomimetic, small-scale artificial leaf surface for the study of environmental interactions

• Miriam Anna Huth,
• Axel Huth,
• Lukas Schreiber and
• Kerstin Koch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 944–957, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.83

• composition play significant roles. Here, the ability of self-assembly of wax after isolation from the leaves was used to develop a small-scale wax-coated artificial leaf surface with the chemical composition and wettability of wheat (Triticum aestivum) leaves. By thermal evaporation of extracted plant waxes

• functions (Figure 1). Among other things, it protects against herbivores and pathogens, provides mechanical stability, reflects harmful UV radiation [2][3][4][5][6], and mainly protects the plant from desiccation [7][8]. The cuticular waxes contribute significantly to this barrier function. Plant waxes

• Plant waxes are complex mixtures of long-chain aliphatic and cyclic hydrocarbon compounds with different functional groups [10]. Typical wax components are fatty acids, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, and triterpenes, but the exact wax composition is species- and organism-specific [11]. The waxes are

Self-assembly of Eucalyptus gunnii wax tubules and pure ß-diketone on HOPG and glass

• Miriam Anna Huth,
• Axel Huth and
• Kerstin Koch

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 939–949, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.70

• protect plants from environmental stress [4]. Waxes are, thereby, essential for a variety of functions, especially in the wettability and self-cleaning ability of plant surfaces [5][6]. Plant waxes consist of a complex mixture of aliphatic and aromatic compounds. The exact chemical composition of the wax

• ]. As early as 1871, de Bary proposed the designation “crystal” for the wax structures [10]. This hypothesis was later verified by X-ray diffraction [11][12]. The most common crystalline structure of epicuticular wax crystals is the orthorhombic order [13]. Studies of growing plant waxes showed that wax

• -dione (C31H60O2) mentioned by Wirthensohn et al. [32][33], and tritriacontane-14,16-dione (C33H64O2) as published by Li et al. [34]. These ß-diketones belong to the most frequent ß-diketones found in plant waxes [35]. Here, extracted wax mixtures of E. gunnii leaves and hentriacontane-14,16-dione were

Kinetics of solvent supported tubule formation of Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) wax on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) investigated by atomic force microscopy

• Sujit Kumar Dora,
• Kerstin Koch,
• Wilhelm Barthlott and
• Klaus Wandelt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 468–481, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.45

• , hydrophobicity, protection of photo synthetic cells, interaction with chemicals and other organisms, providing optical properties etc. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Plant waxes are a conglomerate of various long chain (>C20) hydrocarbons, aldehydes, ketones, acids, alcohols etc. [10]. Further, cyclic compounds, e.g

• ., pentacyclic triterpenoids or flavonoids as components of cuticular waxes are also reported in literature [11][12][13][14]. A comprehensive classification of most types of epicuticular waxes was reported by Barthlott et al. [15]. Additionally, the plant waxes were found to be crystalline in nature as confirmed

Biological and biomimetic materials and surfaces

• Stanislav Gorb and
• Thomas Speck

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 403–407, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.42

• systematics and he was interested if the fascinating nano- and microstructures he saw in the SEM are of importance for classifying the different plant taxa; this was proved true for many of these structures. Wilhelm Barthlott was especially interested in the tiny lipid structures, the so-called plant waxes

• numerous more sophisticated experiments. They also proved that in order to establish comparable self-cleaning properties on technical surfaces, the micro- and nanostructures found on the plant leaves and the hydrophobicity of the plant waxes must be transferred [1][5][6]. This has successfully been done in

Insect attachment on crystalline bioinspired wax surfaces formed by alkanes of varying chain lengths

• Elena Gorb,
• Sandro Böhm,
• Nadine Jacky,
• Louis-Philippe Maier,
• Kirstin Dening,
• Sasha Pechook,
• Boaz Pokroy and
• Stanislav Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1031–1041, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.116

• attachment and higher pull-off forces of polydimethylsiloxane probes on wax surfaces having a higher density of wax coverage, created by smaller crystals. Keywords: Coccinella septempunctata; insect–plant interactions; plant waxes; pull-off force; traction force; Introduction During their locomotion

• shape, we decided, instead of using native plant wax surfaces, to use bioinspired wax surfaces covered by crystals having a similar morphology. Bioinspired surfaces were made of long-chain hydrocarbons, which can be dominating chemical constituents in plant waxes [22]. Four n-alkanes of varying chain

• crystalline wax surfaces compared to smooth glass (Ra = 0.007 ± 0.001 μm, r.m.s. = 0.009 ± 0.001 μm [47]). These results are in line with previous experimental data obtained for different insect species on three-dimensional plant waxes vs smooth surfaces (see Introduction). The good performance of the beetles

The effect of surface anisotropy in the slippery zone of Nepenthes alata pitchers on beetle attachment

• Elena V. Gorb and
• Stanislav N. Gorb

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 302–310, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.35

• caused by the surface micro-roughness. However, our previous theoretical study on the fracture behaviour of wax crystals, based on data on the crystal geometry in seven plant species and data on the mechanical properties of plant waxes, shows that crystals with very small cross sections and high

Superhydrophobicity in perfection: the outstanding properties of the lotus leaf

• Hans J. Ensikat,
• Petra Ditsche-Kuru,
• Christoph Neinhuis and
• Wilhelm Barthlott

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 152–161, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.19

• many platelet-shaped epicuticular waxes, can present the OH-group on the surface, e.g., if they are in contact with a polar environment (water). Holloway (1969) [19] studied the hydrophobicity and water contact angles of various plant waxes and pure wax components. He found the highest contact angles