Press Resources: An Inside Look at Pitcher Plants 4/1/13

4/1 Press release: An Inside Look at Carnivorous Plants

Contact: Clarisse Hart, 978-756-6157, hart3@fas.harvard.edu

April 2013 Oikos paper: Predicting food-web structure with metacommunity models

Photos:

(click image for higher resolution)

The northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea. Each leaf holds an aquatic food web comprised of bacteria, protozoa, and insect larvae. These food webs vary greatly in structure and composition. Photo by Rob Lilieholm.

Northern pitcher plants and their invertebrate foodweb community. Diagram and photo by Aaron Ellison.

The northern pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) – left – and sundew (Drosera sp.) – much smaller, far right – are the two types of carnivorous plants at the Harvard Pond/Tom Swamp research tracts of the Harvard Forest. Photo by Roxanne Ardeshiri.

Ben Baiser and Harvard Forest Summer Research Program student Roxanne Ardeshiri head out to Harvard Pond in Petersham, Mass., to study pitcher plants. Photo by Aleta Wiley.

Ben Baiser extracts the invertebrates from a pitcher plant for later analysis. Photo by Roxanne Ardeshiri.