The Elusive Venus Fly Trap

   A great natural mystery in our world is the case of the carnivorous plant, Dionaea muscipula. Better known by its common name, the Venus Fly Trap. I've always known about their presence. When I was younger, prior to an introduction to biology, I simply accepted that they were plants that with a diet based on trapping flies and digesting them. 

   More specifically Venus Fly Traps capture their prey due to little sensitive "trigger" hairs on the surface of the plant. When a bug lands on the plant, the hairs trigger a response and the two mouth like lobes of leaves snap shut trapping the unlucky fly. The trap constricts the victim excreting digestive juices to break down its food. Similar to how the human stomach works!   to prey was 

 Yet after a long two years dedicated to learning biology, I learned that plants can convert abiotic factors into usable energy making them primary producers.  Through the process of photosynthesis plants convert light energy into usable energy.

  So if plants are capable of producing their own energy from nonliving sources, why do Venus fly traps expend so much seemingly unnecessary energy to consume flies? 

 The answer lies in the environment. Venus Flytraps are native to sandy shrub-boggy areas in North and South Carolina. These areas are prone to frequent fires due to the dryness and heat. The fires clear out many of the competing plants and remove much of the nitrogen from the soil. Nitrogen is a vital nutrient in plants its is a major component of chlorophyll, making it a key ingredient to carry out photosynthesis, and necessary for plants to absorb. As well as a a component of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Proteins in plants are plays a role in the structural base for plants, and act as enzymes speeeding up the biochemical reactions that take place in a plant in order to live.With low levels of nitrogen in the soil, Venus Fly Traps must get it from another source, which is where flies come in. Consuming bugs provides the plant with three quarters of their optimal nitrogen supply, making them a key role to their survival. Therefore the extra energy used to trap and consume these flies is well accounted for. Venus Fly Traps still are plants, flies do not provide them with all of the energy that they need to thrive. Photosynthesis takes place in addition to the consumption of flies

   However another question arises, how is it that these plants developed to trap flies and use them as a source of food? Since when do plants become the predators? 

    Evolution is the answer. The trigger hairs that initiate the trapping and breaking down of flies are very similar to how non-carnivorous plants detect and initiate defences against predators. The shared mechanism indicates that overtime, Venus Fly Traps could have evolved from non-carnivorous plants. What distinguishes them is the use their trigger hairs as an offense rather then a defense approach to predators. The prey became the predator and the predator became the prey.
  
   This astounding adaptation shows the fly trap's ability to adapt to changes in the environment, and like everything in biology, they show that most processes in organisms that expend energy happen for a reason.