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Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack

An enigmatic feature of tropical pitcher plants belonging to the genus Nepenthes is their dimorphic prey-capturing pitfall traps. In many species, the conspicuously shaped upper and lower pitchers grow from a swollen leaf tendril tip until finally opening as insect-alluring devices. Few have studied...

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Autores principales: Schwallier, Rachel, van Wely, Valeri, Baak, Mirna, Vos, Rutger, van Heuven, Bertie Joan, Smets, Erik, van Vugt, Rogier R., Gravendeel, Barbara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33218142
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111603
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author Schwallier, Rachel
van Wely, Valeri
Baak, Mirna
Vos, Rutger
van Heuven, Bertie Joan
Smets, Erik
van Vugt, Rogier R.
Gravendeel, Barbara
author_facet Schwallier, Rachel
van Wely, Valeri
Baak, Mirna
Vos, Rutger
van Heuven, Bertie Joan
Smets, Erik
van Vugt, Rogier R.
Gravendeel, Barbara
author_sort Schwallier, Rachel
collection PubMed
description An enigmatic feature of tropical pitcher plants belonging to the genus Nepenthes is their dimorphic prey-capturing pitfall traps. In many species, the conspicuously shaped upper and lower pitchers grow from a swollen leaf tendril tip until finally opening as insect-alluring devices. Few have studied the ontogeny of these traps from an anatomical and quantitative morphological perspective. We investigated whether the anatomy and development of lower and upper type pitchers of N. rafflesiana differ or overlap in terms of 3D geometric morphology and microstructure progression and presence. We hypothesized that there is an overlap in the initial, but not all, developmental stages of the two pitcher types and that one pitcher type is suspended in development. We identified four important morphological changes of pitcher ontogeny and defined these as curvation, elongation, inflation and maturation phases. Pitcher length indicated progress through developmental phases, and we propose to use it as a tool for indication of developmental stage. Microstructure development coincided with the developmental phases defined. Additionally, we discovered a new anatomical feature of extrafloral nectariferous peristomal glands between the inner peristome ridges of upper and lower pitchers being hollow and analyze the chemistry of the sugars on the outside of these glands. Ontogenetic shape analysis indicated that upper and lower pitcher types develop with similar phase progression but have no directly overlapping morphology. This means that upper pitchers are not a derived state from lower pitchers. Independent developmental programs evolved to produce distinctly shaped upper and lower pitchers in Nepenthes, likely to exploit different food sources.
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spelling pubmed-76989512020-11-29 Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack Schwallier, Rachel van Wely, Valeri Baak, Mirna Vos, Rutger van Heuven, Bertie Joan Smets, Erik van Vugt, Rogier R. Gravendeel, Barbara Plants (Basel) Article An enigmatic feature of tropical pitcher plants belonging to the genus Nepenthes is their dimorphic prey-capturing pitfall traps. In many species, the conspicuously shaped upper and lower pitchers grow from a swollen leaf tendril tip until finally opening as insect-alluring devices. Few have studied the ontogeny of these traps from an anatomical and quantitative morphological perspective. We investigated whether the anatomy and development of lower and upper type pitchers of N. rafflesiana differ or overlap in terms of 3D geometric morphology and microstructure progression and presence. We hypothesized that there is an overlap in the initial, but not all, developmental stages of the two pitcher types and that one pitcher type is suspended in development. We identified four important morphological changes of pitcher ontogeny and defined these as curvation, elongation, inflation and maturation phases. Pitcher length indicated progress through developmental phases, and we propose to use it as a tool for indication of developmental stage. Microstructure development coincided with the developmental phases defined. Additionally, we discovered a new anatomical feature of extrafloral nectariferous peristomal glands between the inner peristome ridges of upper and lower pitchers being hollow and analyze the chemistry of the sugars on the outside of these glands. Ontogenetic shape analysis indicated that upper and lower pitcher types develop with similar phase progression but have no directly overlapping morphology. This means that upper pitchers are not a derived state from lower pitchers. Independent developmental programs evolved to produce distinctly shaped upper and lower pitchers in Nepenthes, likely to exploit different food sources. MDPI 2020-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7698951/ /pubmed/33218142 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111603 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schwallier, Rachel
van Wely, Valeri
Baak, Mirna
Vos, Rutger
van Heuven, Bertie Joan
Smets, Erik
van Vugt, Rogier R.
Gravendeel, Barbara
Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title_full Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title_fullStr Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title_full_unstemmed Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title_short Ontogeny and Anatomy of the Dimorphic Pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack
title_sort ontogeny and anatomy of the dimorphic pitchers of nepenthes rafflesiana jack
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33218142
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants9111603
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