Muscipula speciation

[jimscott]

Just curious - the Drosera genus has >130 species in it. Sarracenia, Nepenthes, and Pinguicula also have several. How is it that there is only Dionaea or for that matter, why only one Darlingtonia? Shouldn't there be something structurely close to it in a nearby location?

 

[scottychaos]

there might be..eventually.
perhaps Dionea is just too recent?
new related species just havent appeared yet.
perhaps its the only one *so far*..
new related species will get here someday, if the habitat survives the short human era.
thats my theory.

Scot

 

[Cynic81]

Also, Darlingtonia may have more in common with sarracenia, IE it's very similar structurally to S. Psittacina. This leaves me wondering why it was given it's own species as opposed to being listed under Sarracenia.

 

[SnowyFalcon]

I think I know this one. Because Darlingtonia has many more differences than is obvious. How many Sarrs do you know that make runners? Also, all Sarracenia can be hybridized. Darlingtonia's cannot be hybridized with Sarrs, making them a separate species. Just because their trapping mechanism is similar doesn't make them the same species. There are probably some other genetic differences, but I'm no scientist.

SF:

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

Isn't it also possible that there were several species of VFTs in the past but they all died out but for D. muscipula?

 

[scottychaos]

Quote[/b] (BigCarnivourKid @ Dec. 22 2003,02:21)]Isn't it also possible that there were several species of VFTs in the past but they all died out but for D. muscipula?

yes, I think that is likely too!
that would also explain why the VFTs current range is so small..
they might be in the last stages of a major (natural) decline!

 

[IceDragon]

Darlingtonia does not make enzymes and the flower is different from sars.

 

[scottychaos]

Quote[/b] (scottychaos @ Dec. 22 2003,02:27)]

Quote[/b] (BigCarnivourKid @ Dec. 22 2003,02:21)]Isn't it also possible that there were several species of VFTs in the past but they all died out but for D. muscipula?

yes, I think that is likely too!
that would also explain why the VFTs current range is so small..
they might be in the last stages of a major (natural) decline!  

or..the range might not be in decline,
but hasnt been able to spread because conditions arent right "outside" the current small range..
but that doesnt seem likely, since VFTs can live in the southern Sarracenia range and conditions..hmmm..

so either the native VFT range was once larger, and is now in decline..or the species is "just starting out" and hasent yet had the time and opportunity to spread out much..
personally I think that is more likely..

scot

 

[Darcie]

Limited habbitat. What do you do when you evolve to fit an ecosystem so perfictly, that nothing else will do. What do you do if that ecosystem has disapeared accross most of the world and you are stuck in an area only a few miles wide with seed that is poor at travel. You don't move any more and if you can't move you can as easilly be isolated and if your not isolated you can't evolve into something different from the plants surrounding you. . . And we do have fossle evidence of several VFT like plants, but they are all extinct. Don't forget Cephs and Sun Pitures, they also only have 1 species.

 

[IceDragon]

Sun pitchers has more then one species. Like H. minor, H. ionasii, H. nutans, H. heterodoxa, and H. tatei.

 

[goldtrap2690]

Another difference between Darlingtonia and Sarracenia is that they have a different amount of chromosones and although there are no other species of Dionaea or Darlingtonia , there are many varieties , mutants , and subspecies , the only Darlingtonia variety is Darlingtonia californica cv. Othello <span style='color:red'>{Edit: Darlingtonia californica 'Othello' is a cultivar not a taxanomic distinction}</span> which is a plant with no red pigment at all and it makes only 1% of the whole Darlingtonia population in the wild , its quite a rare plant and i've only known a few people who might have this plant . the only possible vft species out there is a plant that looks like dentate that has been found in the wild , but it should be a variety because the structure is still the same as the typical plant and there are also many color variants out there . There are many plant species in the same genus that have been hybridized but most of the time it this failed , for example , there was one time when someone crossed a Darlingtonia with a Heliamphora , even though they were in the same genus Sarraceniaceae , the seedlings were weak and died , another example which has been quite interesting is where a person crossed a dionaea muscipula with a Drosera regia ( the most closest relative to the vft ) it worked and the seeds were sterile to germinate but the seedlings were too weak and died . see what i mean ? it just does'nt work although there have been some other plants that were different genuses and still bred and made a plant . venus flytraps may have lived billions of years ago , probably even when dinosaurs roamed the earth when the world was just a huge island called pangea , maybe there are some vft descendant fossils in the desserts of western africa where the two continents used to be connected , the only fossil ever found of a cp was an Aldrovanda ( a plant that still exist today but is threatened in the wild and already extinct in few of its habitats and is a also in the Droseraceae family )  seed or something but that was it .

 

[jimscott]

Goldtrap, I think you are on to something. A few observations: 1) Determining taxonomical placement hasn't been an easy task. Just reading from different sites as to how many Drosera <span style='color:red'>{Edit: no ending "s" is needed to make this plural}</span> there are (130 or 200) indicates that there has been much confusion and opinion. 2) If I remember correctly, a species is generally defined as a population that can mate and produce offspring that can also reproduce. They are not sterile. What was that "snooty" phrase we had to memorize? "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Something like that. 3) Through time and environmental changes (Galapagos Islands phenomenon) populations diverge. If they diverge enough to where they just happen to mate and cannot produce offspring that can mate, then you have a new species of the same genus. At least that's how I remember it! So, VFT's most closely resemble, from a taxonomical perspective, the sundew? And there is not much of a "missing link" left in the world? Too bad. Why I wonder?