One of the authors of the study, Mark C. Mescher, said that, “One of the interesting things we found was that the plants make choices.” Even more fascinating is the choice of their host plant made by the dodder is essential to their survival. A majority of the time, when given the choice, the dodder will choose a tomato plant over a wheat plant as its preferred host. This is most interesting because wheat plants are a poor host because they lack a plentiful variety of nutrients. It is harder for a dodder plant that is attached to a wheat plant to survive than it is for a dodder attached to a nutrient-rich tomato plant (5). So not only does a dodder plant have the ability to choose between a number of potential hosts, the majority of the time it will also choose the plant that will better its chances for survival.
