Creation and Carnivory in the Pitcher Plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae

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Creation and Carnivory in the Pitcher Plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae OPEN ACCESS JCTS Article SERIES B Creation and Carnivory in the Pitcher Plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae R.W. Sanders and T.C. Wood Core Academy of Science, Dayton, TN Abstract The morphological adaptations of carnivorous plants and taxonomic distributions of those adaptations are reviewed, as are the conflicting classifications of the plants based on the adaptations, reproductive morphology, and DNA sequences. To begin developing a creationist understanding of the origin of plant carnivory, we here focus specifically on pitcher plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae because their popularity as cultivated curiosities has generated a literature resource amenable to baraminological analysis. Hybridization records were augmented by total nucleotide differences to assess species similarities. Nonhybridizing species falling within the molecular range of hybridizing species were included in the monobaramin of the hybridizing species. The combined data support each of the three genera of the Sarraceniaceae as a monobaramin, but the three could not be combined into a larger monobaramin. With the Nepenthaceae, the data unequivocally place 73% of the species in a single monobaramin, strongly suggesting the whole genus (and, thus, family) is a monobaramin. The lack of variation in the carnivorous habit provides no evidence for the intrabaraminic origin of carnivory from non-carnivorous plants. An array of fascinating symbiotic relationships of pitchers in some species with unusual bacteria, insects, and vertebrates are known and suggest the origin of carnivory from benign functions of the adaptive structures. However, these symbioses still do not account for the apparent complex design for carnivory characteristic of all species in the two families. Editor: J.W. Francis Received January 24, 2012; Accepted September 10, 2016; Published September 26, 2016 Introduction must be invoked by conventional biology to explain either the highly similar carnivorous adaptations, the flowers and fruits, or Genesis 1:29-30 indicates that God gave plants to animals and the known nucleotide sequences among disparate carnivorous people for food, but today there are over 600 species of carnivorous groups (Soltis et al. 2005, p. 256 ff.). For example, Ellison plants that “eat” animals for food. All species produce modified and Gotelli (2009) claimed that plant carnivory has evolved leaves or stems (“traps”) that capture and digest small animals independently six different times. (mostly arthropods) as a supplementary source of nitrogen, the The challenge for creation biology is to determine the benefits of which vary according to species (Ellison 2006). The created kinds, i.e., baramins, to which these plants belong and origin of these structural and chemical specializations challenges how such plants came to contravene God’s apparent pre-Fall both conventional and creationist science. Phylogenetic design. Specifically, baraminological analysis can assist us in relationships as determined by DNA sequence analysis do not understanding the origins of plant carnivory, either as the original support a single monophyletic origin of plant carnivory, despite design (or modification of that design) encompassing entire the sometimes startlingly similar morphologies and biochemistry baramins or as post-Fall specializations arising in limited species of the insect trapping and digesting structures. Thus, homoplasy or lineages within baramins. ©2016 The authors. This article is open access and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and repro- duction in any medium as long as the original author and medium are credited. Citation: Sanders and Wood. 2016. Creation and Carnivory in the Pitcher Plants of Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae. Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series B: Life Sciences 6:70-80. The structurally and physiologically diverse traps can be Cunoniaceae, and the Byblidaceae are transported to the Lamiales categorized as pitchers, flypaper, snap traps, bladder traps, (Asteridae) between the Lentibulariaceae and Martyniaceae. As or corkscrew (also called lobster-pot) traps (Pietropaolo a result of these realignments, conventional biology proposes six and Pietropaolo 1986). The systematic occurrence of these origins of carnivory (Ellison and Gotelli 2009). In the case of the trap types among the eleven known flowering plant families Caryophyllales, flypaper traps are supposed to have given rise to with carnivorous species is of great interest both in terms of pitchers in the Nepenthaceae, snap traps in the Droseraceae, and occurrence within families and taxonomic placement of the a reversal to noncarnivory (two genera of the Dioncophyllaceae families. Several of the families are monogeneric with one or and Ancistrocladaceae sister to it). In the Ericales, pitchers few species; the Nepenthaceae are monogeneric with numerous and flypaper traps evolved independently in the Sarraceniaceae species; the Martyniaceae, Dioncophyllaceae, and Bromeliaceae and Roridulaceae, respectively. In the Lamiales, flypaper traps have only a few carnivorous species; and the Sarraceniaceae are (Martyniaceae, Byblidaceae, Pinguicula) gave rise to bladders composed of three carnivorous genera. In all these cases, only and corkscrews either independently or in sequence in Utricularia one trap type is found per family. However, in the Droseraceae and Genlisea. Thus, evolutionary analyses posit three origins of and Lentibulariaceae, each composed of three genera, two and flypapers, which give rise to four other types, and four origins of three trap types occur, respectively, and each genus has only one pitchers. trap type. Flypaper traps are found in the Byblidaceae (1 sp.), To begin developing a creationist understanding of the origin Dioncophyllaceae (1 of 3 spp.), Droseraceae (Drosera, 110 spp.), of plant carnivory, we here focus specifically on pitcher plants. Drosophyllaceae (1 sp.), Lentibulariaceae (Pinguicula, 50 spp.), In the Nepenthaceae, Sarraceniaceae, and Cephalotaceae, pitcher Martyniaceae (9 of 13 spp.), and Roridulaceae (1 sp.). Snap traps traps usually form from the basal or apical portion of a leaf that are limited to Aldrovanda and Dionaea in the Droseraceae (2 spp.), develops as a tube rather than a flattened structure. However, in while bladders and corkscrews are unique to Utricularia (200 spp.) the Bromeliaceae an upright whorl of overlapping leaves can also and Genlisea (15 spp.), respectively, both in the Lentibulariaceae. form a tube, which is clearly non-homologous with those in the Pitchers occur in the Nepenthaceae (>130 spp.), Sarraceniaceae other families. The base of the tube fills with water that contains (25 spp.), Cephalotaceae (1 sp.), and Bromeliaceae (only 3 of either digestive enzymes produced by glands on the basal internal the 2110 spp.). The three species in the Bromeliaceae are the only epidermis of the pitcher or digestive bacteria unaided by plant- monocotyledons that are carnivorous; all other carnivorous plants produced enzymes. Above the water, the internal walls are waxy are herbaceous dicotyledons. and/or covered with downward-pointing hairs. Above that the Traditional classifications of these families, based on their pitcher may have light colored spots (windows), nectaries, or atypical flowers and vegetative bodies, are contradictory but have perfume glands to attract insects. The pitcher often has a flattened been eclipsed recently by molecular phylogenies (Soltis et al. 2005, portion of leaf distal to and overhanging the tube to prevent rain pp. 256ff). On the basis of presumed homology of diverse trap forms from diluting the water in the reservoir. The insects enter the top and pollen similarity, Cronquist (1981, pp. 367, 368) united the of the trap to feed or look for food, find it hard to fly or crawl back Nepenthaceae, Sarraceniaceae, Droseraceae and Drosophyllaceae out, and slide down the tube into the digestive reservoir where as an order in his subclass Dilleniidae near the Theales. Takhtajan they drown. (1980, pp. 278-283) also considered the four to be close along These families occupy distinct, mostly separate, non- with the Cephalotaceae, Byblidaceae, and Roridulaceae near overlapping geographic areas. Cephalotus follicularis, the sole the Saxifragales in his subclass Rosidae. Similarly, Cronquist species of the Cephalotaceae, is found in southwestern Australia (1981, pp. 553-555, 569, 570) treated the latter three near the (Cronquist, 1981, p. 570). Nepenthaceae consist of the single genus Saxifragaceae and Pittosporaceae in his Rosales. Both placed the Nepenthes with >130 species native to the Old World tropics, from Dioncophyllaceae near the Theales and Violales in the Dilleniidae Madagascar to northeastern Australia (Cronquist 1981, p. 374) . (Takhtajan 1980, p. 271; Cronquist 1981, p. 407). Thorne (1976) Sarraceniaceae consist of three genera: Sarracenia (8 species), placed the Sarraceniaceae, Dioncophyllaceae, and Nepenthaceae Heliamphora (24 species), and the monospecific Darlingtonia. in separate suborders of his Theales in a superorder more or less Sarracenia species are native to bogs of North America, and equivalent to the Dilleniidae, but separated the Droseraceae and Darlingtonia californica is found only in northern California, Drosophyllaceae to near the Saxifragaceae in his Rosales not far Oregon, and British Columbia. The species of Heliamphora grow from Byblidaceae and Roridulaceae in the Pittosporales. There on and
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