Study
Evolving Darwin’s most wonderful plant: ecological steps to a snap-trap
Gibson, Thomas C.; Waller, Donald M.
New Phytologist, 2009
A comparative reconstruction of how a snap-trap could evolve from a sticky flypaper trap, drawing on the shared ancestry of Dionaea and Drosera and on the ecological conditions where carnivorous plants occur.
- Studied in
- Dionaea muscipula, Drosera
- Sample size
- comparative synthesis across sundews and the flytrap
Carnivory pays only in habitats that are simultaneously wet, sunny and extremely poor in nitrogen and phosphorus. Insect prey supplies nutrients, not energy — the plant still photosynthesises for carbon — and the trap is expensive enough that it is a net loss anywhere richer.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
The snap-trap is a plausible elaboration of an ancestral sticky trap, constrained to a narrow ecological window where soil nutrients are the binding limit.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the study that answers the question people actually ask — "does it need to eat bugs?" — and the answer is no, not for energy. A flytrap photosynthesises like any other plant and would starve without light. Insects supply nitrogen and phosphorus that its native bog cannot, which is why a well-fed houseplant in decent compost survives without ever catching anything, and why the plant is confined in the wild to a strip of nutrient-poor savanna.
- A reconstruction, not an experiment; the evolutionary sequence is inferred from comparative anatomy.
- Cost-benefit estimates for trap construction are approximate.
- Draws on a small clade; conclusions may not extend to pitcher plants, which trap very differently.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
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Published by: Wiley journalsPublished in a Wiley journal.
doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.02935.x
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
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