Blodge - Carnivorous Plants

References and the like
1) Adlassnig W, Peroutka M and Lendl T. "Traps of carnivorous pitcher plants as a habitat: composition of the fluid, biodiversity and mutualistic activities" Ann Bot (2011) 107 (2): 181-194
2)http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/carnivorous-plants/zimmer-text/1
3) Campbell and Reece "Biology 8th ed"
4) Ellison A, Gotelli N. "Energetics and the evolution of carnivorous plants—Darwin's 'most wonderful plants in the world'" J. Exp. Bot. (2009) 60 (1): 19-42.

All images are licensed under creative commons etc etc

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Biology
• Educational
• Interesting
• Carnivorous
• Plant
• Venus
• Flytrap
• Pitcher
• Sundew

[SpaceCasefy]

I liked it, and is way better then doing my actual biology homework. Out of curiosity, what would happen if you stuck your finger in to one of carnivorous plants?

[ArtymesEtc]

@SpaceCasefy Glad to hear it, and honestly? I've never tried. a venus flytrap would snap shut on you, a sundew probably wouldn't bother engulfing your finger as it's a bit big, and the water in a pitcher tends to contain digestive enzymes or nasty bacteria so it's probably not the wisest move.

[Dleger13]

excellent video! I'm a sucker for crash-course bio videos. Also, i'm a little rusty on my carnivorous plants, how is the venus flytrap able to ignore the touching of the first hair trigger and what cause the lobes of the leaf to come together?

[ArtymesEtc]

@Dleger13 Venus flytraps don't ignore the touching of any hair triggers - each one generates a signal when disturbed. However, there's a threshold level. if one hair is touched, the signal produced falls under the threshold and then dissipates over the course of 20-35secs. Provided another is touched before the signal from the first has dissipated the strength of the combined signals is greater than the threshold level, so the trap signals to shut :)

[ArtymesEtc]

@Dleger13 The mechanism for flipping is a mix of biochemistry and elasticity. When the trap is open, the lobes are convex, while in the closed state they're concave. it's the flipping of the convex lobes into concave ones that snap the trap shut. However, we don't fully understand the biochemical step which triggers the change in shape. having said that both theories centre around cells manipulating water to grow/shrink - thus flipping the carefully balanced, elastic lobes from convex to concave

[jmejia1]

Also, some highly valuable pitcher plants are anthocyanin free :)

[ArtymesEtc]

@jmejia1 Glad you like it :) Yeh i wanted to talk about differences between various species of pitchers, as well as carnivorous plants like bladderworts but it's difficult to fit everything in to 4-5mins :/ Thought i'd try to cover some of the basics :D

[jmejia1]

@ArtymesEtc Yeah, most people really don't talk about Utricularia much, or Genlisia either. But you did well in describing the trapping mechanism for most carnivores.

[jmejia1]

Good topic.

interesting video :)