Different mechanics in Aldrovanda and Dionaea

[shartmeyer]

Siman Poppinga (Germany) and Marc Joyeux (France) published recently their new foundings on the closing mechanics of Aldrovanda and Dionaea. Their surprising results are meanwhile online available as reprint. I can really recommend to read it.

"Different mechanics of snap-trapping in the two closely related carnivorous plants Dionaea muscipula and Aldrovanda vesiculosa"

128.84.158.119/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.0714.pdf

[ICPS-bob]

Thanks Siggi. For general interest, here is the author's summary:

In this paper, we have established reliably what are the mechanisms involved in the fast snapping of two carnivorous plant sister species, namely kinematic amplification of bending deformations for Aldrovanda vesiculosa and buckling of the lobes for Dionaea muscipula. This marked difference raises interesting questions from the evolutionary point of view. Molecular systematic studies indeed suggest that the snap traps of Aldrovanda and Dionaea both derived from a common terrestrial ancestor that had sticky ‘flypaper’ traps. One may consequently wonder why these traps are so different now and, in particular, whether this difference is due to the aqueous/terrestrial surroundings or the size of the preys. Possibly, the kinematic amplification as described for Aldrovanda is an optimized mechanism to obtain very fast underwater snap-trap prey capture without too much water displacement, which otherwise would result in prey loss. We are currently performing experiments to answer these questions.

Also, I found the article in the published format
www-lsp.ujf-grenoble.fr/recherche/a2t1/a2t1a3/dynamique/joyeux/reprints/073.pdf

[Apoplast]

Siggi - Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention.

Bob - Thanks for posting the pdf.

This is why I love the ICPS.