Post by Jonathan Mejia on Apr 3, 2013 1:30:09 GMT -5
For many years the idea that each pitcher of Sarracenia purpurea an hold an entire food web has captivated my imagination!
As many of you know, the enzymes that break down prey are in very low concentrations (nearly towards being nonexistent) in S. purpurea (which I will abbreviate as S.p from here on out).. Captured prey are broken down by the community of organisms living within each leaf. Rotifers, mites, mide larvae, nematodes, and algae all chew up the prey and break it down. S.p then absorbs the waste left behind after the community of organisms within S.p has had its fill.
Nicholas Gotelli of the University of Vermont has done a great job at describing this in a video:
A new study was released this year in Oikos (a very popular scientific journal) which talks about how the community of organisms within each leaf is assembled! And no it isn't random! The study was done across the range of S.p and Benjamin Baiser (the primary researcher) and his colleagues went around collecting the entire inquiline communities (sucking them up into tubes bringing them into the lab) and looked to see what was in them!
I found some great pictures from the Harvard Forest website of some of this research being done:
harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/press-resources-inside-look-pitcher-plants-4113
The study basically found that some species are more important than others. They are so important that if you can look for 2 or 3 species in a specific leaf, you can tell which other species will be in there, knowing nothing else about the leaf itself (size, width of mouth, etc.). This means that trophic interactions are known to affect species establishment, composition, within the S.p food web. If one competitor, or predator is present, that can be detrimental to determining the type of community within a leaf!
The study itself was very technical and was used to test predictive models for species assemblages in food webs. It is very mathematical and technical, but if you skim through it, you can get the gist. Here is a link to it:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.00005.x/full
One of the most interesting pictures from the article is this one:
In it you can see the mosquito that frequents pitcher plants is a big predator (the mosquito is represented by its genus name Wyeomyia, and where I live in NY, and where I went to college, the specific species was Wyeomyia smithii). The midges are Metriocnemus, the Flesh fly is Fletcherimyia, and there is even a mite that lives only on sarracenia with the genus name Sarraceniopus.
If you grow S.p outdoors, it is very likely you have many of these organisms living within various leaves throughout your collection. Go outside and hold a pitcher in your hand, and stand in awe of the fact that you hold an entire food web between your palms. Take a picture and upload it if you wish, or you can ask questions/continue the discussion of the assembly of organisms within Sarracenia leaves down below!
As many of you know, the enzymes that break down prey are in very low concentrations (nearly towards being nonexistent) in S. purpurea (which I will abbreviate as S.p from here on out).. Captured prey are broken down by the community of organisms living within each leaf. Rotifers, mites, mide larvae, nematodes, and algae all chew up the prey and break it down. S.p then absorbs the waste left behind after the community of organisms within S.p has had its fill.
Nicholas Gotelli of the University of Vermont has done a great job at describing this in a video:
A new study was released this year in Oikos (a very popular scientific journal) which talks about how the community of organisms within each leaf is assembled! And no it isn't random! The study was done across the range of S.p and Benjamin Baiser (the primary researcher) and his colleagues went around collecting the entire inquiline communities (sucking them up into tubes bringing them into the lab) and looked to see what was in them!
I found some great pictures from the Harvard Forest website of some of this research being done:
harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/press-resources-inside-look-pitcher-plants-4113
The study basically found that some species are more important than others. They are so important that if you can look for 2 or 3 species in a specific leaf, you can tell which other species will be in there, knowing nothing else about the leaf itself (size, width of mouth, etc.). This means that trophic interactions are known to affect species establishment, composition, within the S.p food web. If one competitor, or predator is present, that can be detrimental to determining the type of community within a leaf!
The study itself was very technical and was used to test predictive models for species assemblages in food webs. It is very mathematical and technical, but if you skim through it, you can get the gist. Here is a link to it:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.00005.x/full
One of the most interesting pictures from the article is this one:
In it you can see the mosquito that frequents pitcher plants is a big predator (the mosquito is represented by its genus name Wyeomyia, and where I live in NY, and where I went to college, the specific species was Wyeomyia smithii). The midges are Metriocnemus, the Flesh fly is Fletcherimyia, and there is even a mite that lives only on sarracenia with the genus name Sarraceniopus.
If you grow S.p outdoors, it is very likely you have many of these organisms living within various leaves throughout your collection. Go outside and hold a pitcher in your hand, and stand in awe of the fact that you hold an entire food web between your palms. Take a picture and upload it if you wish, or you can ask questions/continue the discussion of the assembly of organisms within Sarracenia leaves down below!