Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 11:14:41 -0400 From: "Dave Evans" <dpevans@rci.rutgers.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2700$foo@default> Subject: Re: Carnivore or not Carnivore ? Further points perhaps?
Dear Antony,
> Hello CP listserve, Following quite a few e-mails, suggesting that I
> am a perhaps a 'tinny short of a six-pack', perhaps I would put
> this idea forward for discussion: Looking at the energetics of the
> situation (comparing Roridula, i.e. a non-enzyme producing
> sub-carnivore, to a 'carnivore' ,(under today's classification)) Is
> this plant just a little bit more clever in adapting to a situation
> where the plant in it's self does not have to go to the bother and
> energy wastage of producing it's own enzymes when something else
> will do it for it?.
Yes, you're right. But that still doesn't make a carnivore. It does
make it a Sundew and it does make it a symbiote and gets it points for
showing an inclination toward carnivory, but it isn't quite there yet...
What about Darlingtonia? I think it's slightly more of a carnivore than
Roridula because, even if it doesn't make it's own enzymes, it is shaped so
that it retains all it's prey whereas Roridula must rely on it's symbiotes
to make much use of the prey.
> AND also what about cell autolysis??
See above. An urn shaped leaf containing water prepared by the plant
seems to me to be much more effective at getting nutrients than an immobile
Sundew leaf.
Dave Evans
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