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SUMMARY:&quot\;Of water flumes\, waxy walls and toilet bowls: trapping str
 ategies of carnivorous pitcher plants&quot\; - Dr Ulrike Bauer\, Departmen
 t of Zoology
DTSTART:20101112T180000Z
DTEND:20101112T191500Z
UID:TALK26471@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Xavier Moya
DESCRIPTION:Carnivorous plants supplement their nutrition with animal prey
  that they capture in highly elaborate traps. The ability to use this addi
 tional nutrient source enables them to colonise extreme habitats where soi
 l nutrients are scarce. Pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes bear special
 ised mug-shaped leaves that possess several adaptations for the trapping o
 f insects\, including a viscoelastic fluid\, slippery wax crystals and dow
 nward-pointing cells on the inner pitcher wall\, and a superhydrophilic pi
 tcher rim (peristome) which is only slippery when wet. Trap morphology and
  prey spectrum vary substantially between the more than 100 species in the
  genus\, indicating the presence of distinct trapping strategies. I will s
 how that distinct varieties and species rely on different trap components 
 and have evolved specific trap adaptations to target different prey. Some 
 species have even abandoned carnivory and evolved a mutualistic relationsh
 ip with tree shrews that deposit their faeces in the pitchers. There is a 
 growing body of evidence that selective pressures for nutrient resource pa
 rtitioning have driven adaptive radiation in the genus Nepenthes\, making 
 it an ideal model system to study mechanisms of plant evolution.
LOCATION:Old Combination Room (OCR)\, Wolfson College
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