![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2009\/08\/dud_picture.png\" "\\"dud_picture\\"")
<\/a><\/span><\/dt>\nIf you\u2019ve been to many national forests, chances are you\u2019ve seen signs like the one to the left: walk on this field and a land mine might explode. In her talk this morning<\/a> at the ESA Annual Meting, Julie Naumann of the U.S. Army Corps of engineers explained that even if they don\u2019t explode, these buried capsules of TNT and other explosives are bad news for plants.<\/span><\/p>\n Land mine capsules aren\u2019t made to withstand weathering, and as a result, TNT powder can leach out of buried mines and into the soil. Naumann wanted to know what effects this leaching had on plant physiology. She raised individuals of common wax myrtle, a shrub that grows freely on land mine fields in coastal Virginia, and exposed their soil to a range of TNT concentrations. Not surprisingly, the plants showed significant signs of stress, including closing of stomates \u2013 tiny holes that act like plant nostrils \u2014 and reduced photosynthesis.<\/span><\/p>\n The stressed-out plants didn\u2019t just keel over and die, though.\u00a0 All of the plants except for the ones exposed to the highest TNT concentration recovered their stomatal conductance, or the passage of gases and water through the plants\u2019 stomates.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the TNT is stored in the plants\u2019 leaves,\u201d said Naumann. \u201cThere, it\u2019s metabolized into less toxic compounds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n