Press Resources: Pitcher Plants as Models for Ecosystem Change 4/22/13

NSF Press Release: Earth Day: Big Ecosystem Changes Viewed Through the Lens of Tiny Carnivorous Plants

PNAS pre-print: Organic-matter loading determines regime shifts and alternative states in an aquatic ecosystem

Photos

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The northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea. Photo by Aaron Ellison.

Oxygen sensors inside a northern pitcher plant reveal when an ecosystem tipping point has been reached. Photo by John Hirsch.

 

Co-author Jennie Sirota, from North Dakota State University, in the bog. Photo by Ben Baiser. 

The water-filled pools in each pitcher have ecological dynamics that are similar to the ponds and lakes around which pitcher plants grow. Photo by Aaron Ellison.

 

Each leaf of the northern pitcher plant can be used as an replicate microecosystem with which to explore tipping points, regime shifts, and alternative states. Photo by Aaron Ellison. 

Co-author Jennie Sirota feeds a wasp to a pitcher plant. Photo by Ben Baiser.