A novel approach uniting maths, physics, and biology has uncovered how diverse rim shapes in carnivorous pitcher plants relate to strategies for catching different insect prey.
Tag - Carnivorous plant
Alun Salt
A.I. Assistant
Unexpected Discovery of Endangered Aquatic Plant in Japan
A pond in Ishikawa Prefecture has suddenly produced nearly ten thousand globally endangered carnivorous plants, challenging prior beliefs that the species was extinct in the wild in Japan.
Plant chemicals are more important in carnivory than previously thought
Plant carnivory, at the metabolic level, likely evolved from at least two distinct functions–attraction and defence.
Juniper Kiss
3D aquatic plant carnivory by the waterwheel plant and deformed snap-traps
The research contributes to the understanding of a complex, fast and reversible underwater plant movement
Anaesthetic blocks trap closure and wounding response in Venus Flytraps
Diethyl ether renders flytraps unable to close their traps or respond to wounding using a mechanism with parallels in animals.
Erin Zimmerman
Read all about it: Plants that get their own back on animals
Carnivorous Plants by Dan Torre 2019. Reaktion Books Ltd. In the same way that it’s become something of a tradition that books about seeds should contain – and prominently – that Henry David Thoreau ‘seed quote’ * (e.g...
Nigel Chaffey
Floral micromorphology of bird-pollinated carnivorous Utricularia
Most bladderworts (genera Pinguicula, Genlisea, Utricularia, Lentibulariaceae) are pollinated by insects. Bird pollination is rare and has probably evolved independently three times in this family. In Western Australia...
Alex Assiry
Pitcher plants eat their spider competitors
Some spiders go after the same prey that pitcher plants want. What happens when the two compete?
Plants are weird – and rather wonderful too!
Weird Plants by Chris Thorogood, 2018. Kew Publishing. There is a view that plants are sufficiently amazing in their own right that they don’t need to be ‘sensationalised’ or over-hyped in order to make them...
This plant sucks! (But how?)
The bladderwort has a trap faster than the blink of an eye. It uses powerful suction to snatch its prey but how can a plant can suck so much?
Dale Maylea
Prey-induced responses in carnivorous Nepenthes
Carnivorous plants of the genus Nepenthes catch and digest prey, mainly arthropods, in their pitcher traps in order to obtain additional nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate. The digestive character of the pitcher...
botanyone
The cost–benefit model for botanical carnivory
This study concludes that traps have lower rates of photosynthesis than leaves, and that leaves have higher rates of photosynthesis after feeding.
Root exudates and intraspecific variability in allelopathy
Results indicate the potential for metabolic profiling as a tool for examining plant–plant interactions.
Fluid properties influence diet in Nepenthes pitcher plants
Fluid from pitchers of four Nepenthes species is studied to determine retention capacity and time-to-kill for different species of ants and flies.
