OK, I wrote my theory, and then read the article: same.
But I will add that a commercial grower of venus flytraps once got curious, and took a few thousand cloned plantings, growing them in a variety of conditions. As soon as the soil became nourishing, the plants would die. Post mortem seemed to indicate their roots were fungally attacked.
So: plant adapts to living in a food desert (not an actual one, of course; it has to be wet for the carnivory to work, as the article points out). Plant gains weirdo digestion abilities, but at the same time, it no longer needs expensive anti-fungal defences - because the ground isn't rich enough to support parasitic fungi.
Then: human adds the nutrients back in. Boom! The ordinary fungus in the air, which has a tough time invading grass or tree or tobacco or pepper roots (because they have extensive defences, like capsaicin), lands in the rich soil of pretty-much helpless flytrap roots, and has a buffet.
NegativeLatency 14 hours ago [-]
Sorta similar with a lot of plants I imagine, we planted a Madrone tree and it's very tempting to want to water a small & new tree but they can also get root issues if the ground is too wet or doesn't drain well enough. They're highly adapted to living on the sides of cliffs.
ge96 13 hours ago [-]
I've been trying to grow a mango from a seed for so long. The roots always get hit by black fungus and it dies off. Tallest I got one to grow was about 10"
thatcat 7 hours ago [-]
Try adding some natto innoculant to the seed
khafra 5 hours ago [-]
I hope there's a mad scientist somewhere, making a cross-genetic venus flytrap that also produces capsaicin and nicotine.
Falling coconuts can not only kill people, but probably kill far more small animals, again benefiting from them as fertilizer,
ethbr1 13 hours ago [-]
Came to HN for tech news, left with a disturbing realization that coconut trees might be low-key carnivorous.
username135 11 hours ago [-]
Right?!
aaron695 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
doesnt_know 6 hours ago [-]
Going down that line of thought... Cocunuts naturally selected for harder shells because those killed, creating more fertilizer ...
Affric 11 hours ago [-]
If plants moved faster we would be absolutely terrified of them.
signalToNose 27 seconds ago [-]
The Day of the Triffids
athenot 10 hours ago [-]
Let's not be too hasty...
Nevermark 6 hours ago [-]
I would have thought that plants which ate neighboring plants, for their easily accessed nutrients and to protect their own access to sunlight, water and forest nutrients, would be pervasive.
I have heard of chemical/strangling/parasitical type competition. The banyan tree is territorial, for instance.
But we would need another name, other than territorial, carnivorous or vegetarian, to describe plant predators which overtly, actively fed on the physical structure or leaves of fellow plants.
adrian_b 2 hours ago [-]
There are many parasitic plants, like the well-known mistletoe, which eat other plants. Unlike mistletoe, some of the other parasitic plants have given up completely on phototrophy, depending only on the nutrients sucked from the host plant.
It is likely that there are much more parasitic plants than carnivorous plants.
Plants that feed on other plants must do it similarly to a fungus, by penetrating them and growing into them a root-like organ, for sucking their fluids.
A plant could not bite and chew another plant, because, like the fungal cells, the plant cells have abandoned their ancestral animal-like mobility, by covering their cells with walls made of cellulose, which prevent cell mobility. While there are a few plants capable of infrequent fast movements, like the Venus flytrap, they use special tricks for creating tension in an elastic structure, like when drawing a bow, which would not be suitable for sustaining a sequence of movements.
olau 4 hours ago [-]
I think the problem is that then you need two energy harvesting systems, and there's not just that much to eat nearby.
I guess to effectively live a long life by eating other stuff, you need to be able to move, or what you eat need to be able to move to you.
almosthere 14 hours ago [-]
We haven't had an unscheduled total eclipse of the sun with people singing in the background yet.
colecut 14 hours ago [-]
have they tried feeding them alllll niiight loooong
leoedin 15 hours ago [-]
Larger animals tend to more intelligent - presumably there’s a natural limit to the size of prey a carnivorous plant can reliably catch from a static location.
HelloNurse 3 hours ago [-]
Larger animals are highly undesirable prey because they tend to be able to free themselves from a carnivorous plant (low value), with a high probability of severe damage to the plant in the attempt (high cost): they can just walk or climb away, but also involuntarily break a stalk with their weight, tear open a sac with talons, rip away slowly regenerated adhesive parts, eat something that should be dangerous, and so on.
IAmBroom 14 hours ago [-]
Counterpoint: mice and at least one monkey baby have died in pitcher plants in the wild.
jonplackett 14 hours ago [-]
Isn’t this still just the original point though, mice ain’t that big!
imtringued 2 hours ago [-]
A lot of pitcher plants evolved to be a toilet for shrews.
chrisco255 7 hours ago [-]
> Some large carnivorous plants are alive out there, but none is big enough to make a meal out of you.
Clearly these researchers have never been to the Mushroom Kingdom.
cyberax 1 hours ago [-]
OK, let's see. You're a plant, so you have photosynthesis. It allows you to tap around 5W (averaged out) per square meter of foliage by just AFK-ing. Your major need: water, you have to evaporate it for the photosynthesis to work. But it's not a problem in your habitat, there's plenty of water available.
You also need nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients, but comparatively little of them. Nitrogen is the toughest one. This is the one that you can easily get from animals, though. So you can evolve a complicated mechanism to trap small animals and digest them for nutrients. It also provides you with a bit of energy, but it's completely immaterial compared to photosynthesis, so you don't even bother evolving all the complicated protein-to-glucose pathways.
Now, you want to grow bigger. How would you do it? Energy is not an issue, the photosynthesis provides plenty of it. But you need to trap more or bigger animals, and that's an issue. There just aren't that many of them, and you can't just get away with simple traps anymore.
musicale 6 hours ago [-]
I guess there are still some things that we can be grateful for.
bell-cot 13 hours ago [-]
As soon as a carnivorous plant gets big enough to be eating young mammals, it hits the Mama Bear barrier. With motivation, even a tiny mammal can do an enormous amount of damage to a plant.
hirvi74 12 hours ago [-]
Some carnivorous plants do eat mammals. Though not primarily, some pitcher plant species have been known to eat mice, for example.
bilsbie 11 hours ago [-]
A related question is why plants in general can thrive on such tiny amounts of protein. (Nitrogen)
15 hours ago [-]
Sevii 12 hours ago [-]
Plants not being able to chew or tear their prey is a big disadvantage.
mlinhares 8 hours ago [-]
Not if you're prey. i'd rather not have more stuff trying to eat me :P
nyeah 14 hours ago [-]
tl;dr Basically a lot of sorry excuses.
If you're a plant, don't buy into the negativity. Work your way up the food chain. If you eat it, then it's your food.
But I will add that a commercial grower of venus flytraps once got curious, and took a few thousand cloned plantings, growing them in a variety of conditions. As soon as the soil became nourishing, the plants would die. Post mortem seemed to indicate their roots were fungally attacked.
So: plant adapts to living in a food desert (not an actual one, of course; it has to be wet for the carnivory to work, as the article points out). Plant gains weirdo digestion abilities, but at the same time, it no longer needs expensive anti-fungal defences - because the ground isn't rich enough to support parasitic fungi.
Then: human adds the nutrients back in. Boom! The ordinary fungus in the air, which has a tough time invading grass or tree or tobacco or pepper roots (because they have extensive defences, like capsaicin), lands in the rich soil of pretty-much helpless flytrap roots, and has a buffet.
Brambles can trap sheep, benefiting from the sheep as fertilizer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGobnZq83g
Falling coconuts can not only kill people, but probably kill far more small animals, again benefiting from them as fertilizer,
I have heard of chemical/strangling/parasitical type competition. The banyan tree is territorial, for instance.
But we would need another name, other than territorial, carnivorous or vegetarian, to describe plant predators which overtly, actively fed on the physical structure or leaves of fellow plants.
It is likely that there are much more parasitic plants than carnivorous plants.
Plants that feed on other plants must do it similarly to a fungus, by penetrating them and growing into them a root-like organ, for sucking their fluids.
A plant could not bite and chew another plant, because, like the fungal cells, the plant cells have abandoned their ancestral animal-like mobility, by covering their cells with walls made of cellulose, which prevent cell mobility. While there are a few plants capable of infrequent fast movements, like the Venus flytrap, they use special tricks for creating tension in an elastic structure, like when drawing a bow, which would not be suitable for sustaining a sequence of movements.
I guess to effectively live a long life by eating other stuff, you need to be able to move, or what you eat need to be able to move to you.
Clearly these researchers have never been to the Mushroom Kingdom.
You also need nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients, but comparatively little of them. Nitrogen is the toughest one. This is the one that you can easily get from animals, though. So you can evolve a complicated mechanism to trap small animals and digest them for nutrients. It also provides you with a bit of energy, but it's completely immaterial compared to photosynthesis, so you don't even bother evolving all the complicated protein-to-glucose pathways.
Now, you want to grow bigger. How would you do it? Energy is not an issue, the photosynthesis provides plenty of it. But you need to trap more or bigger animals, and that's an issue. There just aren't that many of them, and you can't just get away with simple traps anymore.
If you're a plant, don't buy into the negativity. Work your way up the food chain. If you eat it, then it's your food.