Venus Flytraps Can Identify Meals From a False Alarm

A recent report by the BBC pointed out that scientists from the University of Würzburg discovered the amount of times follicles are triggered corresponds to what a carnivorous plant’s guts does, in addition to how it absorbs nutrients from captured-and-digested prey.

The ability to distinguish from different objects is similar to the robot created by a group of researchers from Seoul National University in South Korea. Seung-Won Kim and colleagues created robots back in 2011 that mimic the Venus flytraps. These robots switch between two stable shapes when subjected to force, heat or an electric current. The team used two different materials — a clamshell-shaped piece of carbon fibre that acts as the leaves, connected by a shape-memory metal spring. The weight of an insect on the spring makes it contract sharply, pulling the leaves together and enveloping the prey. Opening the trap once more is just a matter of applying a current to the spring.

In the Würzburg study they concluded that the more you touch the plant, the more reaction you get. Two strokes causes the mouth to snap shut, while additional strokes indicate the size of the prey and causes the plant to produce a proportionally larger amount of prey degrading hydrolases. Essentially, this ensures the plant only produces the amount of enzymes it needs on a per-meal basis, and prevents wasted production resulting from a flower petal or some other non-food item grazing its maw. Moreover, the production of a sodium channel that the plant uses to absorb gradually increases during this process as well.

It is a complex response that goes pretty deep into the plant — not just a reflexive one. Sometimes it is tough to figure out why the plant is not eating the food given in its mouth. It is the right trigger that you have to put inside its jaws that cause them to close and its digestive system to start producing the enzymes that break down food.

Thus, it reminds us of those robots mimicking the original plants. Perhaps, plants are also intelligent and can give strong signals which help humans to come up with new innovations.