What biological explanation that allow plants like the Venus flytrap to digest insects?
In: Biology
If you’re asking how they do it, they secrete a bunch of enzymes that effectively disassemble the insect on a molecular level, and afterwards absorb the resulting insect-soup. If you’re asking why they do it, it’s to acquire various nutrients that they would usually get from the soil, but can’t for whatever reason. This is most often nitrogen in nitrogen-poor soils, but IIRC, there are some carnivorous plants that digest things for other nutrients, not just nitrogen.
Note that this is different from the carnivorous nature of various animals; carnivorous plants are still autotrophs, they still make their own energy through photosynthesis just like other plants do. They only ‘eat’ to get components for themselves that they don’t have easy access to, not to gain energy from their food.
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