Some Carnivorous Plants Evolved Into Toilets And Are Now Winning at Life
canopic jug writes:
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
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