How a Venus Flytrap Snaps

Chris Gondek pastes in a few sentences: "A team of scientists led by a Harvard mathematician say they have solved one of the plant world's most intriguing mysteries: how the Venus flytrap snaps shut. Using a high-speed video camera and computer modelling, the team found that the flytrap employs an ingenious trick to slowly build up elastic pressure in its leaves, like the stretching of a rubber band, and then snap at the slightest provocation."

Comments

Hasn't this been known for decades?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Pressure builds up in the cells, electrical impulses, etc. old stuff...

I learned this stuff in advanced ecology in college. One of the grad students even showed us the impulses on a computer. A Math grad student used this in a paper about the catastrophy point.

What exactly is new with this experiment? The article doesn't go into details.

Re:Hasn't this been known for decades?

[Naikrovek]

it has been known for a while that the Venus Flytrap uses electrical signals to trigger the closure, but no one knew exactly how the mouth actually closed. No one knew what the mechanics of the mouth were. Now we know how the mouth closes, but not the exact method that initiates the closure.

It is now known (since this study) that the mouth is poised to close most of the time and just given that final miniscule nudge to flip shut when something touches two hairs inside. in the article they describe a soft contact lens; push on its center and it resists, until a point where the lens suddenly inverts. the point just before the inversion is where the Venus Flytrap spends most of its time. just a few small cells fill with water (this is the unknown bit, how that happens) and its enough to push the internal structure of the mouth over the edge, slamming shut.

Flytrap

[christopherfinke]

It's been my experience that a Venus Flytrap will snap when he's been around Les Nessman for too long.

Re:It didn't really seem to explain it to well

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Am I asking too many questions or thinking too deeply in this?

No! It's impossible to think too deeply :)

I haven't studied this stuff in 10 years, but now I'm looking all over for information on this again.

I found that this article had a good summary which explains Electrochemistry in plants.

Is it some funky electromechanical system?

They describe some of the mechanics in the parent article...

when an insect lands on the leaf and triggers an electrical signal, it takes only a tiny change in pressure to push the leaf over the brink, slamming it shut.

Although it doesn't explain how the electical impulse causes the change in pressure. But plants change the amount of fluid in cells all the time in response to light, and all plants have the ability to transmit electrochemical signals. The flytrap is just way more specialized in dealing with elecrochemical signals.

Does this mean a Venus Fly Trap requires certain minerals in the soil so it can absorb the electrolytes and thus carry the electrical impulse inside the plant?

All plants have the ability to transmit electrochemical signals. The flytrap is just way more specialized. The Flytrap gets most of the minerals from the insects (which are probably high in electrolytes?), not from the soil :)