How Do Carnivorous Plants Digest Insects?

Carnivorous plants digest the insects in various ways. All species have different ways digesting by a leaf, sealed trap, stomach or commensal organism. Most of these plants have glands that secrete acids and enzymes which help in the break of the proteins and other compounds of trapped insects. Some other plants also use another organism to digest the prey.

Carnivorous Plants Digestion

In the case of digestion by the leaf sealed traps, only digestive enzymes and other materials are secreted by the plants. The plants excrete fluid to suffocate the insects and digest quickly. This way carnivorous plants get nutrients. Some carnivorous plants use both enzymes and the other organisms to kill the insects and to digest them. Plants like Drosophyllum have a unique structure such as non-moving tentacles but is don’t used by the plant directly instead of using the digestive enzymes on the leaf for the insects. The other plant i.e. Dionaea has one advantage than others is that rain can’t wash away its nutrients because the digestion process occurs in the mucus which is secreted by the Dionaea plant.

Some plants have water traps so they have to secret only digestive enzymes. The much known Venus flytraps also use the trapping techniques and then secrete the enzymes for digesting the trapped insects. These traps can be snapped shut and hence no air can get in or out. In this case, digestion can take several days and then leaf re-opens.

 The above descriptions are the main ways of digestion techniques used by carnivorous plants. For getting more information regarding carnivorous plant functioning, visit “https://hungryplant.com/”.