Response of a carnivorous plant to simulated herbivory

Studies addressing the impact of herbivory in carnivorous plants are scarce, despite loss of tissue being expected to be costly, as leaves are involved in both energy and nutrient acquisition. We evaluated the effect of simulated herbivory in a population of the carnivorous plant Pinguicula moranensis. We predicted an overall negative impact of herbivory by reducing growth, flowering probability and survivorship. Specifically, we expected that the increase in the negative effect should be related to the amount of leaf area removed. We performed simulated herbivory in plants growing in situ (2015) and ex situ (greenhouse, 2016) using a paper punch (herbivory ranging from 0 to 50%). In the ex-situ experiment, we also tested the effect of availability of resources by implementing a prey addition trial where half of the plants were supplemented with prey (one fruit fly per week). In both experiments, our hypothesis was not supported, as growth, flowering probability and survivorship were not influenced by herbivory treatments. Plants subjected to prey addition did not show higher performance than plants deprived of prey, contradicting our prediction that availability of resources could ameliorate the effect of herbivory. Overall, the lack of differences in performance between undamaged (control) and damaged plants indicate an unexpected short-term ability of P. moranensis to tolerate herbivory, even at high levels of damage.

Automated summary

Despite expectations of costly impacts from herbivory on carnivorous plants, studies on this topic are scarce. In experiments simulating herbivory on Pinguicula moranensis, no significant negative effects on growth, flowering, or survivorship were observed. Additionally, supplementing plants with prey did not improve their performance, suggesting an unexpected ability of P. moranensis to tolerate herbivory.