Nepenthes are tropical pitcher plants which are known for trapping and digesting not only insects but even small mammals and amphibians. In some environments and microclimates where prey is scarce, several species have recently been found to double their nitrogen intake not from trapping visiting animals but by trapping their excrement as they feed on nectar provided by the traps.
"A handful of Nepenthes species have evolved away from carnivory towards a diet of animal scats," says Alastair Robinson, a botanist from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Australia.
"We found that nitrogen capture is more than two times greater in species that capture mammal droppings than in other Nepenthes."
The team looked at six species and four hybrids of Nepenthes in Malaysian Borneo, analyzing tissue samples to look at the amount of nitrogen and carbon that had been captured from outside the plants.
This Species of Carnivorous Plant Evolved Into a Toilet And Is Now Winning at Life. Science Alert.
The collection of mammal faeces clearly represents a highly effective strategy for heterotrophic nitrogen gain in Nepenthes. Species with adaptations for capturing mammal excreta occur exclusively at high elevation (i.e. are typically summit-occurring) where previous studies suggest invertebrate prey are less abundant and less frequently captured. As such, we propose this strategy may maximize nutritional return by specializing towards ensuring the collection and retention of few but higher-value N sources in environments where invertebrate prey may be scarce.
Capture of mammal excreta by Nepenthes is an effective heterotrophic nutrition strategy. Annals of Botany
Previously:
(2021) Venus Flytraps Produce Magnetic Fields When They Eat
(2020) How Venus Flytraps Snap
(2019) Little Swamp of Horrors? Researchers Find Salamander-Eating Plants in Ontario, Canada
Related Stories
Researchers Discover Meat-Eating Plant in Ontario, Canada:
Call it the "Little Bog of Horrors." In what is believed to be a first for North America, biologists at the University of Guelph have discovered that meat-eating pitcher plants in Ontario's Algonquin Park wetlands consume not just bugs but also young salamanders.
[...]Pitcher plants growing in wetlands across Canada have long been known to eat creatures—mostly insects and spiders—that fall into their bell-shaped leaves and decompose in rainwater collected there.
But until now, no one had reported this salamander species caught by a pitcher plant in North America, including Canada's oldest provincial park, a popular destination where the plants have been observed for hundreds of years.
[...]In summer 2017, then undergraduate student Teskey Baldwin found a salamander trapped inside a pitcher plant during a U of G field ecology course in the provincial park.
[...]Monitoring pitcher plants around a single pond in the park in fall 2018, the team found almost one in five contained the juvenile amphibians, each about as long as a human finger. Several plants contained more than one captured salamander.
Those observations coincided with "pulses" of young salamanders crawling onto land after changing from their larval state in the pond. Smith said these bog ponds lack fish, making salamanders a key predator and prey species in food webs.
[...]Some trapped salamanders died within three days, while others lived for up to 19 days.
More information: Patrick D. Moldowan et al, Nature's pitfall trap: Salamanders as rich prey for carnivorous plants in a nutrient‐poor northern bog ecosystem, Ecology (2019). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2770
The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is perhaps the most well-known carnivorous plant. It catches its prey, mostly spiders and insects, using a sophisticated trapping mechanism. Its distinct leaves have three highly sensitive trigger hairs on each lobe. These hairs react to even the slightest touches -- e.g. when a fly crawls along the leaf -- by sending out an electrical signal, which quickly spreads across the entire leaf. If two signals are triggered in a short time, the trap snaps within milliseconds.
The physiological reactions on which this trapping mechanism is based have been studied for over 200 years. The consensus has been that every sufficiently strong touch of a trigger hair causes an electrical signal, and that two signals within 30 seconds result in the closing of the trap. A new study from the University of Zurich (UZH) and ETH Zurich has now found another triggering mechanism. "Contrary to popular belief, slowly touching a trigger hair only once can also cause two signals and thus lead to the snapping of the trap," says co-last author Ueli Grossniklaus, director of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UZH.
Journal Reference:
Jan T. Burri, Eashan Saikia, Nino F. Läubli, et al. A single touch can provide sufficient mechanical stimulation to trigger Venus flytrap closure, PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000740)
Venus flytraps produce magnetic fields when they eat:
Carnivorous plants known as Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) lure insects between their blushing leaves with a fragrant nectar. When these insect-hungry plants snap down on their unassuming prey, they generate a measurable magnetic field, according to a new study.
[...] Rather than serving a function for the plant this magnetic field is likely a byproduct of electrical energy that flows through its leaves, said lead author Anne Fabricant, a doctoral candidate at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz in Germany. Still, it's one of the first such fields ever detected in plants.
"Wherever there is electrical activity, there should also be magnetic activity," Fabricant told Live Science. The laws of electromagnetism dictate that anything with an electrical current also generates a magnetic field; and that includes humans, animals and plants. In fact, it's such a common phenomenon among living things that there's a name associated with it: biomagnetism. But while much research focused on such magnetic fields in humans and animals, not much has been done to understand biomagnetism in the plant world.
[...] "It's exciting to demonstrate plant-biomagnetic measurements using atomic magnetometers, which operate at room temperature and can be portable and miniaturized," Fabricant said. "The fact that we were able to detect magnetic fields gives some hints about how electric currents are distributed in the trap." The researchers hope to measure even tinier magnetic fields in other plant species, according to the statement.
Journal Reference:
Anne Fabricant, Geoffrey Z. Iwata, Sönke Scherzer, et al. Action potentials induce biomagnetic fields in carnivorous Venus flytrap plants [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-81114-w)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2023, @01:04PM (2 children)
Vive la différence!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 01 2023, @02:49PM (1 child)
Bon Appétit ?
(Or can you only say that to animals before they eat?)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday February 01 2023, @03:00PM
Comparing "Become a toilet" vs. the WEF's "You'll eat bugs and like it." and the latter seems the far less unpleasant option.
(Unless you're into that I guess. YKI very definitely NMK.)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 01 2023, @03:06PM (4 children)
<no-sarcasm>
So the feces eating plants only occur at higher elevations?
If that mechanism of capturing nitrogen were efficient, then I think through normal means of plant reproduction, these species would have reproduced down to lower and lower elevations.
</no-sarcasm>
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday February 01 2023, @03:59PM (1 child)
I would think that it is a matter of how common the prey is. Collecting animal excrement requires more resources put into nectar and such. So if the turds are a little over 2x better for the plant than live prey, then once the availability of trapped prey crosses sufficient level of abundance the trapping would be a more successful strategy than the composting. Below that threshold, collecting turds from unharmed visitors works out better. So at the higher altitudes the small animals are more benefit to the plant as valued patrons than as dinner. At the lower altitudes the small animals are abundant enough that even when harvesting them, they are still plentiful and the plants won't be able to make a dent in the supply.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Thursday February 02 2023, @12:42AM
There's that, there's also the question of the soil. They're getting nitrogen in this fashion for a reason, there isn't enough in the soil. They may not tolerate normal levels of nitrogen in the soil. My Venus flytraps would die pretty quickly if I fertilized them.
(Score: 4, Funny) by SpockLogic on Wednesday February 01 2023, @05:25PM
Hmmm …. The higher up you get, the more shit you have to eat. Reminds me of a former Head of Department.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 01 2023, @06:03PM
Bear in mind that soil of any sort is scarce at higher elevations. Good, nutritious topsoil is entirely absent. The wind and the rain washed everything available down into the lower elevations. So, if the plant needs nitrogen more than anything else, and there is no available biologically useful nitrogen, there is no better place to get free nitrogen than in feces. Some other nutrients are able to be taken directly from whatever rock the plants grow on, but nitrogen only comes from living or once-living matter.
In trapping the animal, the plant feeds once. Enticing the animal to return again and again to feed the plant is actually more efficient, IMO.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2023, @03:31PM (1 child)
They are called "Republicans".
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2023, @05:37PM
So the piss tapes were real....