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Utricularia trap microbiome

  • Thread starter collin
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collin

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I was doing some research about Utricularia when I stumbled across a really interesting paper. It turns out that Utricularia transport a large percentage of their photosynthetically fixed carbon (read: sugar) to their traps (25% and 20% for the two species studied, U. vulgaris and U. australis respectively). The authors hypothesize that this is to facilitate a microbial community, which may secrete allelochemicals that attract microcrustaceans. Just an interesting find that I wanted to share.

The more I learn about these plants the weirder they become.
 
That's very interesting! Certainly this genus shows huge complexity in its morphology and methods.
 
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