Carnivorous plants
Whether it’s classic science fiction novels, such as The Day of The Triffids with its aggressive man-eating plants, or the humorous musical Little Shop of Horrors with its Venus Fly-Trap look-alikes, the idea that plants eat meat is engrossing, partly because it seems so rare and unlikely. Yet research just published jointly by Professor Mark Chase, at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a team from the Natural History Museum, suggests that carnivory in plants may be more common than we think.

Sources of food
The team was inspired by Darwin’s work on carnivorous plants. ‘We were pretty amazed,’ says Professor Chase, ‘to see some of the things that he recorded at that time about plant responses to substances deposited on their surfaces.’ Scientists believe that plants trapping insects is probably to prevent insects from eating them. But then the insects break down, and ‘if the plant is capable of absorbing the remains’, says Professor Chase, ‘the plant effectively becomes carnivorous.’ Chase argues that the evidence suggests that trapping insects is not simply for defensive purposes. For example, says Chase, if there is competition in a habitat between plants for nitrogen and phosphorous, ‘animal bodies are good sources for Nitrogen and Phosphorous.’ If these plants are doing something with the produce of those insects, ‘it makes sense to say it looks like they are indulging in a level of carnivory.’

Potatoes and Petunias
Chase says their research was intended to help shift the focus in the area, and encourage scientists working in plant physiology to develop new research. ‘When you look at the distribution among plants with glandular hair on their surfaces, on the stems of their leaves, that secrete mucilage, you find that this is extremely widespread.’ Potatoes and Petunias are just two common examples. ‘Most groups of plants have these. That changes the whole perspective. If all of these plants, or even a large percentage of them are involved in some level of carnivory, you can almost say that the flowering plants verge on being primitively carnivorous.’ The central point for Chase is that this research can help shift ‘the framing of the questions we are asking, and that’s an important thing when you are building experiments - to make sure you have the proper frame of reference.’