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SUNDEW OBSESSION. "At the present moment, I care more about Drosera than the origin of all the species in the world." (Darwin 1860, in a letter to Charles Lyell, Page 492 of the 1911 edition of The life and letters of Charles Darwin, edited by F. Darwin). https://lnkd.in/eGYndS2 View in LinkedIn

COUNTERING STICKY FEET. "Experimental data showed that none of the flies was able to walk across any of the waxy surfaces and only a few were able to take off from those surfaces. Both the absence of sites for claw anchorage, especially in N. ventrata, and the wax itself were shown to contribute to the trapping ability of the plants. We hypothesize that wax interacts with adhesive fluids secreted by the fly pad and thereby prevents the tenent setae from functioning effectively." https://lnkd.in/eBJsvKZ View in LinkedIn

MOST WONDERFUL. "This plant, commonly called Venus’ fly-trap, from the rapidity and force of its movements, is one of the most wonderful in the world." (C. Darwin, Insectivorous plants, 1898, p. 231). https://lnkd.in/eGEAMQ5 View in LinkedIn

MODULATED MECHANISMS. "Species without wax crystals had wider peristomes with a longer inward slope. Ancestral state reconstructions identified wax crystal layers and narrow, symmetrical peristomes as ancestral, indicating that wax crystals have been reduced or lost multiple times independently." https://lnkd.in/eRvVEeB View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE for the next two weekends deals with carnivorous plants, yet another area of research spurred by the work of Charles Darwin. These are not only active carnivores, but they display vigorous electrical action potentials, a property not generally considered to be plant-like. These ingenious creatures challenge our standard view of plants and open the possibilities. View in LinkedIn

SLIP MECHANICS. "Carnivorous plants of the genus Nepenthes have evolved a striking diversity of pitcher traps that rely on specialized slippery surfaces for prey capture. With a comparative study of trap morphology, we show that Nepenthes pitcher plants have evolved specific adaptations for the use of either one of two distinct trapping mechanisms: slippery wax crystals on the inner pitcher wall and ‘insect aquaplaning’ on the wet upper rim (peristome)." https://lnkd.in/eRvVEeB View in LinkedIn

COMPLEMENTARY CHARACTERISTICS. "Overall, the genomic innovation of the RNA world complements that of the more conservative and stable DNA world." https://lnkd.in/e-pJFM6 View in LinkedIn

SLIPPERY SLOPE. "Plants in the genus Nepenthes obtain a substantial nutrient supply by trapping insects in highly modified leaves. A broad zone of the inner surface of these pitchers is densely covered with wax crystals on which most insects lose their footing. This slippery wax surface, capturing prey and preventing its escape from the trap, plays a pivotal role in the carnivorous syndrome." https://lnkd.in/e5qyHRe View in LinkedIn

DNA DEPENDED ON RNA INNOVATION. "Today we know that the DNA world, on its own, would not have brought forth such an incredible diversity by natural selection, let alone established the necessary genetic precondition to create such a high degree of complexity." https://lnkd.in/e-pJFM6 View in LinkedIn

"REGULATORY COMPLEXITY. This is the prerequisite for epigenetically-induced evolutionary and developmental processes. If evolutionary processes are intertwined between different species complexity is even more evident." https://lnkd.in/eJG-UVH View in LinkedIn