Evolution Of Carnivorous Plants

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The path of turning to carnivory seems to be quite limited for mild-mannered flowering plants. Scientists have observed that many distantly related species of carnivorous plants, like pitcher plants, sundews, Venus flytraps, and butterworts, have all independently evolved to repurpose ancient enzymes to digest animal matter through their leaves. This convergent evolution sees transporter genes found in roots, which shuttle nitrogen and potassium throughout the plant, moved to the leaves; the only difference is that the leaf genes are only switched on when the plants sense nutrients from decaying bodies. Read full article here

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