Thank you for your clarification (citation omitted here). This already read
rather different from your initial lapidary statement:
>the plant doesn't play an active role in killing and
>digesting it's prey.
But have you applied the same rigorous criteria in verifying this
hypothesis as you have in trying to falsify evidence of the opposite?
Pointing at *possible inadequacies* in the experimental setup of someone
else is by far not sufficient or even equivalent to own experiments in
order to *disprove* the original theory.
>only about 0.1 - 1% of all bacteria found in natural samples can be
>detected using cultural techniques. Many won't grow simply because we
>don't know what their minimum growth requirements are. The lack of growth
>on culture media cannot be accepted as proof of their absence.
Well, I cannot entirely subscribe to this. You will in all probability
detect the (digestive) bacteria from _S.purpurea_ by growth on standard
media: the digestive fluid in _S.p._ is very similar to (rather poor)
standard media in composition, and you do not expect these creatures to be
extremely thermophilic/halophilic or otherwise weird (the allegedly 99 %
-of species, by far not of cells!- you will not catch by standard methods
are such), do you?
>If you know of some really definitive studies of enzyme secretion
>by S. purpurea, please let me know. I really like to find out how much the
>plant actually contributes to digestion, and I'm always open to new ideas
>:-).
The mentioned ideas are not really new (they were published as early as the
twenties, as you already noted). Please let me know if you know of any
really definitive studies of *missing* enzyme secretion by _S.purpurea_.
Please correct me if I am wrong: you assume that there is/are a/
non-detectable and not growing (i.e. yet completely unknown)
bacterium/bacteria present in the fluids of unopened pitchers of
_Sarracenia purpurea_, producing all of the proteolytic activity measured
in these fluids, while you accept without difficulties that all other
species of the same genus can produce (rather similar) endogeneous
proteolytic enzymes? Maybe you understand why I do not believe so without
further evidence.
Kind regards
Jan