Plants are sensible organisms which need nutrients to survive and sustain their lives in changing environmental conditions. Plants face different types of challenges within their life span and they have adapted to different weather conditions as well as predators from the surrounding. Most of the plants satisfy their nutrient needs through the root system, leaves and branches. But when the plants face a defect in the nutrients in the rooted soil, some plants have evolved mechanisms to attract small animals and to feed on them.
Plants feeding on animals??? Yes, You heard it correctly. Some plants depend upon animals to sustain their nutrient needs. These plants follow special mechanisms to attract capture and digest small creatures like insects, spiders, and other small animals. These plants have evolved to extraordinary abilities like sensing, moving, digesting and absorbing nutrients without nerves, muscles or any digestive organ like the stomach in humans. The Venus fly trap (Dionaea muscipula) is a carnivorous plant which satisfies its nutritional needs by capturing sma
Do you know?
- Dionaea means Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty in Latin and Muscipula means Rat Trap
- First discovered in North America along the coast of North and South Carolina
- Venus Fly Traps can catch and digest small frogs and even human flesh
- Dionaea muscipula is the only species in its genus, therefore it is called a monotypic genus.
Each trap of this plant is a modified leaf composed of two lobes. The upper side of each fly trap is composed of anthocyanins which are red or purple coloured pigments which draw most of the insects into the trap. The Venus flytrap lures insects with a sweet sap produced by its nectar glands, which are located inner side of the plant’s lobes. Also inside the lobe proteins such as mucilage are secreted. When the trap is open, the lobe is in convex shape and each lobe is composed of 3 sensitive hair-like structures which are called trigger hairs. If one of these trigger hairs is touched more than 2 times within a 30-second time frame, the trap will snap and the lobes will be closed.
These trigger hairs are introduced as mechanosensor by the famous plant physiologist Prof. Alexander Volkov. When a hair or few are deflected, the sensory cells are stretched and mechanosensitive ion channels located at the plasma membranes are opened. These openings of ion channels create a potential difference across the cell membrane called a receptor potential. When this potential reaches a threshold value an Action Potential occurs and when two APs are generated within 30 seconds, the trap is closed.
It is amazing how these lobes of the trap are closed. The APs open up special pores in the cells of the outermost layers of the fly trap enabling the flow of water from cells on the inside of the lobes to the outside of the lobes. These changes in the cell pressure are called turgor pressure and this is responsible for the closure of the lobes.
Once the lobes are closed and the trap is sealed, the digestive enzymes are released. After the digestion process is finished, the leaf reabsorbs the interior fluid and signals the plant to reopen the lid. The remains inside the opened lobes would be the undigested remains of the insect. But these remains also would be washed off by rain or might be blown away by wind preparing the trap for another hunt. A trap would be capable of capturing multiple victims during their lifetime. But when the prey is considerably large or taking too long to digest, the trap dies and falls off the plant.
References
- Jabr, F. (2010). How Does a Venus Flytrap Work? [online] Scienceline. Available at: https://scienceline.org/2010/03/how-does-a-venus-flytrap-work/.
- Bemm, F., Becker, D., Larisch, C., Kreuzer, I., Escalante-Perez, M., Schulze, W.X., Ankenbrand, M., Van de Weyer, A.L., Krol, E., Al-Rasheid, K.A. and Mithöfer, A., 2016. Venus flytrap carnivorous lifestyle builds on herbivore defense strategies. Genome Research, 26(6), pp.812-825.
- Volkov, A.G., 2019. Signaling in electrical networks of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula Ellis). Bioelectrochemistry, 125, pp.25-32.
- Saikia, E., Läubli, N.F., Vogler, H., Rüggeberg, M., Herrmann, H.J., Burgert, I., Burri, J.T., Nelson, B.J., Grossniklaus, U. and Wittel, F.K., 2021. Mechanical factors contributing to the Venus flytrap’s rate-dependent response to stimuli. Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 20(6), pp.2287-2297.
- Pavlovič, A., Jakšová, J. and Novák, O., 2017. Triggering a false alarm: wounding mimics prey capture in the carnivorous Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula). New Phytologist, 216(3), pp.927-938.
- Forterre, Y., Skotheim, J.M., Dumais, J. and Mahadevan, L., 2005. How the Venus flytrap snaps. Nature, 433(7024), pp.421-425.
- Burri, J.T., Saikia, E., Läubli, N.F., Vogler, H., Wittel, F.K., Rüggeberg, M., Herrmann, H.J., Burgert, I., Nelson, B.J. and Grossniklaus, U., 2019. The mechanical basis for snapping of the Venus flytrap, Darwin’s ‘most wonderful plant in the world’. BioRXiv, p.697797.
- Nelly (2023) ‘Ultimate Venus Flytrap Care Guide – Free care Sheet included,’ Venus Flytrap World, 27 March. https://venusflytrapworld.com/ultimate-venus-flytrap-care-guide-free-care-sheet-included/.
