Fly caught inside a Venus fly trap. (Credit: iStockphoto/Manuel Jung)
Perhaps you've been thinking about growing some carnivorous houseplants. Here is some information about the why questions of carnivorous plants.
Like the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors, carnivorous plants rely on animal prey for sustenance. Fortunately for humans, carnivorous plants found in nature are not dependent on a diet of human blood but rather are satisfied with the occasional fly or other insect. The existence of carnivorous plants has fascinated botanists and non-botanists alike for centuries and raises the question, "Why are some plants carnivorous?"
A recent article by Drs. Jim Karagatzides and Aaron Ellison in the September issue of the American Journal of Botany addresses this question. As Ellison stated, "The general answer to this is that in environments that have few nutrients (such as bogs, where we study carnivorous plants), carnivory allows these plants to capture nutrients 'on the wing'. But if it's so good to be a carnivorous plant in these kinds of environments, why aren't there more carnivorous plants? Knowing how much it 'costs' a carnivorous plant to make a trap is a key piece of information needed to understand why there aren't more carnivorous plants."
