Fatal Attraction

Evolutionist Charles Darwin first marvelled at flesh-eating plants in the mid-19th century. Today,
biologists, using 21st-century tools to study cells and DNA, are beginning to understand how
these plants hunt, eat and digest – and how such bizarre adaptations arose in the first place.
A The leaves of the Venus flytrap plant are covered in hairs. When an insect brushes against
them, this triggers a tiny electric charge, which travels down tunnels in the leaf and opens up
pores in the leaf’s cell membranes. Water surges from the cells on the inside of the leaf to those
on the outside, causing the leaf to rapidly flip in shape from convex to concave, like a soft
contact lens. As the leaves flip, they snap together, trapping the insect in their sharp-toothed
jaws.
B The bladderwort has an equally sophisticated way of setting its underwater trap. It pumps
water out of tiny bag-like bladders, making a vacuum inside. When small creatures swim past,
they bend the hairs on the bladder, causing a flap to open. The low pressure sucks water in,
carrying the animal along with it. In one five-hundredth of a second, the door swings shut again.
The Drosera sundew, meanwhile, has a thick, sweet liquid oozing from its leaves, which first
attracts insects, then holds them fast before the leaves snap shut. Pitcher plants use yet another
strategy, growing long tube-shaped leaves to imprison their prey. Raffles’ pitcher plant, from the
jungles of Borneo, produces nectar that both lures insects and forms a slick surface on which
they can’t get a grip. Insects that land on the rim of the pitcher slide on the liquid and tumble
in.
C Many carnivorous plants secrete enzymes to penetrate the hard exoskeleton of insects so they
can absorb nutrients from inside their prey. But the purple pitcher plant, which lives in bogs and
infertile sandy soils in North America, enlists other organisms to process its food. It is home to
an intricate food web of mosquito larvae, midges and bacteria, many of which can survive only
in this unique habitat. These animals shred the prey that fall into the pitcher, and the smaller
organisms feed on the debris. Finally, the plant absorbs the nutrients released.
D While such plants clearly thrive on being carnivorous, the benefits of eating flesh are not the
ones you might expect. Carnivorous animals such as ourselves use the carbon in protein and the
fat in meat to build muscles and store energy. Carnivorous plants instead draw nitrogen,
phosphorus, and other critical nutrients from their prey in order to build light-harvesting
enzymes. Eating animals, in other words, lets carnivorous plants do what all plants do: carry out
photosynthesis, that is, grow by harnessing energy directly from the sun.
E Carnivorous plants are, in fact, very inefficient at converting sunlight into tissue. This is
because of all the energy they expend to make the equipment to catch animals – the enzymes,
the pumps, and so on. A pitcher or a flytrap cannot carry out much photosynthesis because,
unlike plants with ordinary leaves, they do not have flat solar panels that can grab lots of
sunlight. There are, however, some special conditions in which the benefits of being carnivorous
do outweigh the costs. The poor soil of bogs, for example, offers little nitrogen and phosphorus,
so carnivorous plants enjoy an advantage over plants that obtain these nutrients by more
conventional means. Bogs are also flooded with sunshine, so even an inefficient carnivorous
plant can photosynthesise enough light to survive.
F Evolution has repeatedly made this trade-off. By comparing the DNA of carnivorous plants
with other species, scientists have found that they evolved independently on at least six
separate occasions. Some carnivorous plants that look nearly identical turn out to be only
distantly related. The two kinds of pitcher plants – the tropical genus Nepenthes and the North
American Sarracenia – have, surprisingly, evolved from different ancestors, although both grow
deep pitchershaped leaves and employ the same strategy for capturing prey.
G In several cases, scientists can see how complex carnivorous plants evolved from simpler
ones. Venus flytraps, for example, share an ancestor with Portuguese sundews, which only catch
prey passively, via ‘flypaper’ glands on their stems. They share a more recent ancestor with
Drosera sundews, which can also curl their leaves over their prey. Venus flytraps appear to have
evolved an even more elaborate version of this kind of trap, complete with jaw-like leaves.
H Unfortunately, the adaptations that enable carnivorous plants to thrive in marginal habitats
also make them exquisitely sensitive. Agricultural run-off and pollution from power plants are
adding extra nitrogen to many bogs in North America. Carnivorous plants are so finely tuned to
low levels of nitrogen that this extra fertilizer is overloading their systems, and they eventually
burn themselves out and die.
I Humans also threaten carnivorous plants in other ways. The black market trade in exotic
carnivorous plants is so vigorous now that botanists are keeping the location of some rare
species a secret. But even if the poaching of carnivorous plants can be halted, they will continue
to suffer from other assaults. In the pine savannah of North Carolina, the increasing suppression
of fires is allowing other plants to grow too quickly and outcompete the flytraps in their native
environment. Good news, perhaps, for flies. But a loss for all who, like Darwin, delight in the
sheer inventiveness of evolution.
Questions 1-5
Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
How a Venus flytrap traps an insect
• Insect touches (1)…………………………….on leaf of plant
• Small (2)……………………………..passes through leaf
• (3)…………………………….in cell membrane open
• Outside cells of leaves fill with (4)…………………………….
• Leaves change so that they have a (5)………………………………..shape and snap nut
Questions 6-9
Look at the following statements (Questions 6-9) and the list of plants. Match each statement
with the correct plant, A. B. C, D or E. Write the correct letter, A, B, C, D or E, in boxes 6-9 on
your answer sheet.
6 It uses other creatures to help it digest insects.
7 It produces a slippery substance to make insects fall inside it.
8 It creates an empty space into which insects are sucked.
9 It produces a sticky substance which traps insects on its surface.
List of plants
A Venus flytrap
B bladderwort
C Drosera sundew
D Raffles’ pitcher plant
E purple pitcher plant
Questions 10-13
Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-l. Which paragraph contains the following
information?
10 a mention of a disadvantage of the leaf shape of some carnivorous plants
11 an example of an effort made to protect carnivorous plants
12 unexpected information about the origins of certain carnivorous plants
13 an example of environmental changes that shorten the life cycles of carnivorous plants