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You’ve read about plants that eat animals, like the Venus Flytrap and the Pitcher Plant. Philcoxia does it, too, but you can’t see it, because this Brazilian plant works underground, using sticky leaves that grow under the soil. Researchers Caio Pereira and Peter Fritsch have been studying how Philcoxia gets its nutrients.
In 2007, Peter Fritsch found a possible answer. He noticed nematode worms stuck to the underground leaves, and reasoned that the plant was trapping and digesting them. Pereira, working with Fritsch, has now confirmed this hypothesis.
He found that Philcoxia’s underground leaves are littered with the bodies of dead nematodes. To check that the deaths aren’t coincidental, Pereira bred nematodes so that their bodies were full of nitrogen-15 – a rare and heavier-than-usual version of the element. He then “fed” the nematodes to Philcoxia. Two days later, Pereira found that 15 percent of the nitrogen-15 in the worms has been incorporated into the plant’s leaves. It was clear proof that Philcoxia was digesting the nematodes and absorbing the remains into their bodies.
Many meat-eating plants digest their prey with high concentrations of enzymes called phosphatases. Philcoxia does so too. Pereira found loads of the enzymes on Philcoxia’s leaves, which means that the plants are probably digesting the nematodes directly.
Read more at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link
A new species of pitcher plant has been discovered in the Philippines. The giant pitcher (Nepenthes attenboroughii) lives high on Mount Victoria, and was reported by missionaries who were lost in the mountain area in 2000. An expedition to find the giant pitcher was held in 2007 by natural history explorer Stewart McPherson, botanist Alastair Robinson, Andreas Fleischmann, and three guides.
Pitchers create tube-like leaf structures into which insects and other small animals tumble and become trapped.
The team has placed type specimens of the new species in the herbarium of the Palawan State University, and have named the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii after broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough.
“The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps as large as other species which catch not only insects, but also rodents as large as rats,” says McPherson.
(image credit: Stewart McPherson)
Charles Darwin was fascinated with the Venus Flytrap and other carnivorous plants. How did such a thing arise through natural selection? Botanists Don Waller and Thomas Gibson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison believe they have figured it out. The Venus Flytrap descended from an earlier plant that had sticky leaves that acted as flypaper.
First the ancestral plant must have adapted to move its tentacles and leaves in a particular direction, giving it a greater chance of sticking to and engulfing a passing insect.
Next it sped up how quickly it detected prey and tried to respond.
Then the plant would have had to find a way to become selective, so it only tried to trap live prey and not any detritus that landed upon it.
Finally, it must have evolved its tentacles into sensory hairs and teeth that detect and wrap around prey, respectively, while also losing its sticky glands and growing new digestive glands capable of digesting the victim’s corpse.
The adaptations led to the plant’s ability to eat larger insects for more nutrition. Link -via the Presurfer
