Chapter Summary Of Meat Eating Plants By Nathan Aaseng

Meat Eating Plants by Nathan Aaseng is about the 3 most common and successful ways plants get nutrients from insects. The first chapter talks about where carnivorous plants originated from, for example the venus-flytrap was found in West Virginia and was never seen anywhere other than this area. In recent years carnivorous plants have gone endangered from people picking their traps and their colorful flowers that most of them produce. The simplest way that plants get meal is by using flypaper traps, this method is done by the plant producing a sticky sweet substance that flies, mosquitoes, and other insects are attracted to, but when they land for a bit they get stuck on the sticky plant. After the bug dies the bugs nutrients is absorbed into
How it works is by the plant putting out a sweet aroma which attracts insects especially ants. When the ants reach the top of the tubed plant they go in the tub to where the sweet smell is coming from, once it starts to go down it slips down the plants slick sides and falls into a thick watery substance, in which it drowns. The watery substance also contains enzymes that help digest and break up the nutrients of the insect, then the plant digests the bug. The third method plants use is called trigger traps. For example a venus flytrap uses this method. The venus flytrap has little strands of fiber at the back of the trap that the flies touch to trigger the plant to close the trap. What attracts the flies is a sweet smelling goo, similar to all the rest of the plants, at the back of the trap, on the other side of the trigger strands so that the fly will have to brush the strands in order to get the bait. The process and complexity that these plants use to gain nutrients is incredible, this is why the do so good in areas that have poor
“A trigger trap called Dionaea, or Venus’s-flytrap, is found only along the coastal plains of North and South Carolina” (29). After reading a web page called Venus Flytrap Center, it was clear that the Venus-flytraps grew strictly in North and South Carolina with the exception of certain parts of florida. It is important to note that not all carnivorous plants are native to the east coast. “Butterworts thrive in most parts of the world north of the Equator” (13). According to All About The Butterworts Plant, the plants originated from the northern tropical areas of Mexico and North America. In addition to the Butterwort and the Venus-flytrap, the pitcher plant can be found in north america. “For many years people noticed pools of water inside the pitcher plants that grew in North America and in the Pacific tropics” (7,8). According to the Sarracenia Pitcher Plant Care Guide website the North American or Sarracenia pitcher plant grows between Florida and the New England States. The diversity of species is needed for its survival.
Carnivorous plants unique abilities allows it to thrive in locations that other plants can not. “They thrive in wet, sandy, high-acid soil” (35). According to a site called Reptiles Magazine, the carnivorous plants thrive in nitrogen depleted soil. They get there extra nutrients that they can't get from the soil from insects and other small creatures that might happen upon the