salix's botany corner: plant carnivory
not all carnivorous plants do a big snappy Chomp!!! there are 5 main mechanisms that evolved separately 9 times total!
snapping traps, bladders, pitcher/pitfall, flypaper/sticky, and lobster traps!
first, i want to outline *why* plants would eat animals. plants just need sun and water and soil, right?
welllll.
soil is the key one here. soil contains nutrients like nitrogen and sulfur that are very useful for plants photosynthesizing and making new compounds, and carbon is super necessary to store energy in forms like sugar and starch (yum!)
normally, they get that from fungi and other microorganisms that fix nitrogen. in fact, some plants grow and help fungi that fix nitrogen and prep soil useful for other plants (this is a reason to rotate out crops when farming!)
— 🐰lixy! (ze/hir)
salix's botany corner: plant carnivory, snapping traps
so, let's go into the traps! snapping traps are well known so we'll start there. venus flytraps and waterwheel plants are the only two extant species!
so, they essentially have nerves like animals to some degree. they have ion channels, and force of movement on special "hairs" (exactly like your inner ear and your balance sensing ear bit i can't remember the name of) triggers a release of ions, transferring an electric charge. the trap snaps shut, usually after detecting a rapid succession of movement (like an insect twitching) and *stays shut* but only if something still moves once trapped for a bit.
then they release digestive enzymes, and it's yummy nutrient time from arthropods (for the Venus fly trap) and small invertebrates (for the waterwheel plant!
— 🐰lixy! (ze/hir)
salix's botany corner: plant carnivory, bladder traps
bladder traps! ok yall i love these. they're literally the coolest??
the only genus that has them is bladderworts, Utricularia. they're often aquatic, and even when not, they're reliant on saturated soil and swimming animals.
they have little sealed containers (bladders), that normally would be filled with water, but they use osmosis to slowly pump it out and pull a partial vacuum. there's a little door on it, and when something bumps the door, it's enough force to unseal it, and suddenly water *rushes* in, pulling the animal in with it, to their demise. so instead of chomp, it's more like shluuuurp.
— 🐰lixy! (ze/hir)
