The Brazilian savannah is home to a subterranean little shop of horrors for tiny worms.
Plants of the Philcoxia genus aren't as physically impressive (or musically talented) as Audrey 2, the man-eating plant of stage and screen, but can be just as deadly to nematodes, or roundworms.
The three species recently studied, P. bahiensis, P. minensis and P. goiasensis, are the first plants found to feed on animals underground. The plants have sticky subterranean leaves which trap nematodes as they crawl through the nutrient-poor white sand of the Brazilian cerrado, a vast tropical grassland.
Researchers from Brazil and California determined that the plants were indeed feeding carnivorously by feeding them nematodes labeled with nitrogen 15, a stable isotope of the common element.
BLOG: Save Me, Seymour! Flytraps, Carnivorous Plants Dwindling Across US
The above ground leaves then produced by the plants contained significant amounts of the isotope, meaning the labeled nematodes had been digested and incorporated into the plant's structure.
The Philcoxia genus was not known to be a meat-eater.
“This leads to the question of whether there are other carnivorous plants out there in families not known for carnivory,” said Peter Fritsch, a botanist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and co-author of the predator Philcoxia study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in Nature.
BLOG: Bat Uses Carnivorous Plant as a Toilet
IMAGES:
Philcoxia in its natural habitat at Serra do Cabral, Minas Gerais, Brazil (National Academy of Sciences)
Scanning electron microscope image of the upper leaf surface showing the abundance of nematodes, stalked glands, and adherent sand grains. Arrows point to nematodes and sand grains. (National Academy of Sciences)
Tags: Animal Relationships, Biodiversity, Evolution, Food Chain, Scientific Discoveries
comments ( )