Biologists report which animals are captured by the carnivorous waterwheel plant

Freiburg biologists Dr. Simon Poppinga, Anna Westermeier and Prof. Dr. Thomas Speck, working in cooperation with researchers from the Ruhr University Bochum and the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Třeboň (Czech Republic), have for the first time reconstructed in detail the menu of the carnivorous waterwheel plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa). The study shows that the plant is not fussy about what it eats, and catches anything and everything that fits into its trap and triggers the snap mechanism. The team has published its results in the open-access journal Integrative Organismal Biology.