Diversity of Arthropods Preyed Upon by the Carnivorous Plant Pinguicula Moranensis (Lentibulariaceae) in a Temperate Forest of Central Mexico (Report‪)‬

The immediate benefit of a carnivorous habit in plants is a significant increase in rate of photosynthesis derived from a higher concentration of nutrients in leaves (Aldenius et al., 1983; Wakefield et al., 2005; Ellison, 2006). Plants obtain nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium from captured prey; nonetheless, ca. 60% of nitrogen is sequestered by bacteria (Karlsson and Carlsson, 1984; Adamec, 2002; Farnsworth and Ellison, 2008). Incorporation of nutrients coming from prey allows plants to assign resources to roots for uptake of nitrogen (Karlsson and Carlsson, 1984; Adamec, 2002). In this way, economy of nutrients in carnivorous plants, expressed in terms ofefficiencies of use of photosynthetic nutrients, is closely linked to capture of prey. This resolves deficiencies of nutrients that generally characterize the substrate where the plant grows (Farnsworth and Ellison, 2008). Presence of potential animal prey for carnivorous plants may vary among environments and seasons, so that different populations of plants establish themselves in the presence of particular communities of prey (Zamora et al., 1998; Alcala and Dominguez, 2003). Capture of prey normally is lower than availability of prey (Harms, 1999; Jobson and Morris, 2001). Also, there is a high success in escaping from the traps, which depends mainly on size of insects (Gibson, 1991).