Post by Apoplast on Jul 13, 2011 2:03:47 GMT
Hello all, I wanted to let everyone know I saw an interesting talk today by Dr. Douglas Darnowski at the Botanical conference on prey preferences in aquatic Utricularia species from eastern North America. As far as I can tell it is not yet published so I don't know how many details I can/should post, but essentially he showed that across the eastern U.S. all the Utricularia species are likely showing a preference for arthropod prey.
His findings are very cool and related to questions I've had about the axes of coexistence among co-occurring Utricularia species. His response to the first question asked after his presentation, suggested he may think the species are segregating along environmental gradients. This leaves me wondering to what extent they compete for prey species in the same volume of water. A good study of course only leads to more questions and Dr. Darnowski certainly has got a great start for understanding the community of Utricularia species from this region.
His findings are very cool and related to questions I've had about the axes of coexistence among co-occurring Utricularia species. His response to the first question asked after his presentation, suggested he may think the species are segregating along environmental gradients. This leaves me wondering to what extent they compete for prey species in the same volume of water. A good study of course only leads to more questions and Dr. Darnowski certainly has got a great start for understanding the community of Utricularia species from this region.
