Tentative Evolutionary Relationships of Carnivorous Plants
I’ve seen a few posts inquiring about the evolutionary history of carnivorous plants. I found the question interesting, so here’s what I’ve come up with from sleuthing around the web.
Here are some taxonomic relationships… This is the reason why I call this post “tentative.” I’ve seen at least three different versions of taxonomic classification for these plants, but this one seems to be the most widespread. I’ll list a few examples….
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Dionaea/Species Musipula
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Drosera/....
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Aldrovanda/....
The venus’ flytraps, the sundews, and the waterwheel plants are all in the same family; they are very closely related.
How about the evolution of the trap types? I found a page referencing a paper by Victor Albert, published in Science magazine in 1992. If anyone can find this paper, we’d all like to see it! Anyhow, what the guy did was this. In order to figure out the phylogeny (evolutionary history) of these plants, he picked a protein (the most abundant one in the world!) called RuBP Carboxylase (Rubisco). This is the one that grabs CO2 molecules from the so that the carbon can be used in the synthesis of sugars for the plant. He compared differences in the gene that codes for this protein and derived evolutionary relationships from it. In other words, lots of small differences in the gene mean that the plants are not all that related, and not many differences at all mean that the plants are closely related. The final verdict?
Well, some of the traps that appear similar evolved independently. Sticky traps, like sundews and butterworts, evolved independently. What this means is that sundews and butterworts did not share and immediate common “sticky” ancestor… what we have is convergent evolution and analogous structures. These plants ended up in similar environments, and thus evolved similar mechanisms for survival.
Phew. Please correct any incorrect biology (I know there are many here that are studying biology). Anyone that’s found any more information, please post! It’s a real chore digging through disjointed taxonomy from obscure websites. The website posted earlier about VFT evolution was, well, kinda quacky.
-Coop
I’ve seen a few posts inquiring about the evolutionary history of carnivorous plants. I found the question interesting, so here’s what I’ve come up with from sleuthing around the web.
Here are some taxonomic relationships… This is the reason why I call this post “tentative.” I’ve seen at least three different versions of taxonomic classification for these plants, but this one seems to be the most widespread. I’ll list a few examples….
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Dionaea/Species Musipula
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Drosera/....
Domain Eukarya/Kingom Plantae/Division Anthophyta/Class Dicotyledoneae/Order Caryophyllales/Family Droseraceae/Genus Aldrovanda/....
The venus’ flytraps, the sundews, and the waterwheel plants are all in the same family; they are very closely related.
How about the evolution of the trap types? I found a page referencing a paper by Victor Albert, published in Science magazine in 1992. If anyone can find this paper, we’d all like to see it! Anyhow, what the guy did was this. In order to figure out the phylogeny (evolutionary history) of these plants, he picked a protein (the most abundant one in the world!) called RuBP Carboxylase (Rubisco). This is the one that grabs CO2 molecules from the so that the carbon can be used in the synthesis of sugars for the plant. He compared differences in the gene that codes for this protein and derived evolutionary relationships from it. In other words, lots of small differences in the gene mean that the plants are not all that related, and not many differences at all mean that the plants are closely related. The final verdict?
Well, some of the traps that appear similar evolved independently. Sticky traps, like sundews and butterworts, evolved independently. What this means is that sundews and butterworts did not share and immediate common “sticky” ancestor… what we have is convergent evolution and analogous structures. These plants ended up in similar environments, and thus evolved similar mechanisms for survival.
Phew. Please correct any incorrect biology (I know there are many here that are studying biology). Anyone that’s found any more information, please post! It’s a real chore digging through disjointed taxonomy from obscure websites. The website posted earlier about VFT evolution was, well, kinda quacky.
-Coop
