Sticky alpine flower confirms Darwin's 150-year-old carnivorous plant prediction
A sticky alpine flower has vindicated a prediction Darwin made 150 years ago about carnivorous plants. Commenters note that Saxifrage, a favorite subject for macro photography, shows the same glandular appendages in western Europe, though sparser than in typical insectivorous species and with a distinctive elongated mushroom shape. The discovery highlights how iterative science can confirm a century-old theory about a plant that eats bugs for nitrogen.
step 1 invent science step 2 iteratively use it until you can prove a 150 year old theory about plant that eats bugs for nitrogen. hard not to think its so cool that we have the capability to do stuff like this.
- salviati
I thought a "prediction" was something about the future. But Darwin, if I understand correctly, classified the plant as carnivorous. As it is the title makes you think the plant turned carnivorous since Darwin made his prediction; and make you think Darwin said "This plant will soon become carnivore". But what happened is that his statement has been confirmed, not that the plant changed.
- chicken-stew
Saxifrage is one of my favourite subjects for macro photography and I often noticed the same glandular appendages in plants here in W.EU as well. They’re sparser in number than in your typical insectivorous plant, but have this easily recognisable elongated mushroom shape.
- inshard
I wonder what Darwin would observe and conclude if he were somehow brought back to Earth today. Particularly around information theory, Dawkins’ memes and selfish genes, and now a seemingly new class of something in AI.
- pvaldes
An interesting part of this is that Carnivorous plants belong mainly to two evolutive lineages. To simplify it, a main group is distantly related with Rosmarinus and Olive trees and the other main group is a distant cousin of Pinks and Cacti.
This introduces a totally different group of carnivorous in the order Saxifragales, that includes Blackcurrants, Peonies and Aloe (sometimes people confuse Aloe with a cacti, but Succulents aren't cacti).
So the plants became carnivorous at least three times to adapt to specially hard places, and they need very humid places to do it.
- sandworm101
And there are carnivorous trees, even entire forests:
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/salmon-trees/
"up to 50 percent of the total nitrogen the trees use comes from salmon."
https://pacificwild.org/salmon-feed-forests/
"resident bears have been known to carry over 6,200 kg of salmon from the rivers to the woods, eating two thirds of the protein and leaving behind nearly 2,000 kg of salmon remains. Bears play a critical role in transporting nutrients from freshwater to the terrestrial environment, spreading the food source to other species and the forest floor. Decaying salmon carcasses are distributed everywhere post spawning, allowing nutrient rich soil to provide for the dense plant life of the rainforest"