Social aphids Nipponaphis monzeni show a remarkable dedication to the upkeep of their homes.

The animals force plants to grow ‘galls’ of tissue inside which they reside. When these galls are damaged soldier aphids rush to the breach and explode themselves, sealing the hole with a sticky mess of aphid goo and creating a protective scab.

Takema Fukatsu and colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, investigated what happens after the scab is formed.

“Within a month after repair, the plant tissue around the hole proliferated and sealed up the hole,” they write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“Many soldier nymphs were localized at the hole area and extermination of inhabiting aphids by insecticides aborted the gall regeneration, indicating that the gall regeneration requires inhabiting aphids, wherein soldier nymphs are likely to play a major role.”

Peter Smithers, an entomologist at the University of Plymouth, told the BBC:

This is the aphids fooling the plant into doing something that it doesn’t need or want to do. It’s an interesting evolved set of behaviours and physiologies that are closely linked, that have co-evolved.

But the aphids are calling the shots.

Image: gall with hole bored by researchers and then repaired (hole indicated by arrow) / Royal Society.