Carnivorous plants have fascinated botanists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, physiologists, developmental biologists, anatomists, horticulturalists, and the general public for centuries. Charles Darwin was the first scientist to demonstrate experimentally that some plants could actually attract, kill, digest, and absorb nutrients from insect prey; his book Insectivorous Plants (1875) remains a widely-cited classic. Since then, many movies and plays, short stories, novels, coffee-table picture books, and popular books on the cultivation of carnivorous plants have been produced. However, all of these widely read products depend on accurate scientific information, and most of them have repeated and recycled data from just three comprehensive, but now long out of date, scientific monographs. The field has evolved and changed dramatically in the nearly 30 years since the last of these books was published, and thousands of scientific papers on carnivorous plants have appeared in the academic journal literature. In response, Ellison and Adamec have assembled the world's leading experts to provide a truly modern synthesis. They examine every aspect of physiology, biochemistry, genomics, ecology, and evolution of these remarkable plants, culminating in a description of the serious threats they now face from over-collection, poaching, habitat loss, and climatic change which directly threaten their habitats and continued persistence in them.
Part I: Overview
1:Introduction, Aaron M. Ellison and Lubomír Adamec
2:Biogeography and habitats of carnivorous plants, J. Stephen Brewer and Jan Schlauer
3:Evolution of carnivory in angiosperms, Andreas Fleischmann, Jan Schlauer, Stephen A. Smith, and Thomas J. Givnish
Part II: Systematics and evolution of carnivorous plants
4:Systematics and evolution of Droseraceae, Andreas Fleischmann, Adam T. Cross, Robert Gibson, Paulo M. Gonella, and Kingsley W. Dixon
5:Systematics and evolution of Nepenthes, Charles Clarke, Jan Schlauer, Jonathan Moran, and Alastair Robinson
6:Systematics and evolution of Lentibulariaceae: I. Pinguicula, Andreas Fleischmann and Aymeric Roccia
7:Systematics and evolution of Lentibulariaceae: II. Genlisea, Andreas Fleischmann
8:Systematics and evolution of Lentibulariaceae: III. Utricularia, Richard W. Jobson, Paulo C. Baleeiro, and Cástor Guisande
9:Systematics and evolution of Sarraceniaceae, Robert F.C. Naczi
10:Systematics and evolution of small genera of carnivorous plants, Adam T. Cross, Maria Paniw, André Vito Scatigna, Nick Kalfas, Bruce Anderson, Thomas J. Givnish, and Andreas Fleischmann
11:Carnivorous plant genomes, Tanya Renner, Tianying Lan, Kimberly M. Farr, Enrique Ibarra-Laclette, Luis Herrera- Esrella, Stephan C. Schuster, Mitsuyasu Hasebe, Kenji Fukushima, and Victor A. Albert
Part III: Physiology, form, and function
12:Attraction of prey, John D. Horner, Bartosz J. Plachno, Ulrike Bauer, and Bruno Di Giusto
13:Functional anatomy of carnivorous traps, Bartosz J. Plachno and Lyudmila E. Muravnik
14:Motile traps, Simon Poppinga, Ulrike Bauer, Thomas Speck, and Alexander G. Volkov
15:Non-motile traps, Ulrike Bauer, Reinhard Jetter, and Simon Poppinga
16:Biochemistry of prey digestion and nutrient absorption, Ildikó Matušiková, Andrej Pavlovic, and Tanya Renner
17:Mineral nutrition of terrestrial carnivorous plants, Lubomír Adamec and Andrej Pavlovic
18:Why are plants carnivorous? Cost/benefit analysis, whole-plant growth, and the context- specific advantages of botanical carnivory, Thomas J. Givnish, K. William Sparks, Steven J. Hunter, and Andrej Pavlovic
19:Ecophysiology of aquatic carnivorous plants, Lubomír Adamec
20:Biotechnology with carnivorous plants, Laurent Legendre and Douglas W. Darnowski
Part IV: Ecology
21:Prey selection and specialization by carnivorous plants, Douglas W. Darnowski, Ulrike Bauer, Marcos Méndez, John D. Horner, and Bartosz J. Plachno
22:Reproductive biology and prey-pollinator conflicts, Adam T. Cross, Arthur R. Davis, Andreas Fleischmann, John D. Horner, Andreas Jürgens, David J. Merritt, Gillian L. Murza, and Shane R. Turner
23:Commensals of Nepenthes pitchers, Leonora S. Bittleston
24:Pitcher-plant communities as model systems for addressing fundamental questions in ecology and evolution, Thomas E. Miller, William E. Bradshaw, and Christina M. Holzapfel
25:The Utricularia-associated microbiome: composition, function, and ecology, Dagmara Sirová, Jirí Bárta, Jakub Borovec, and Jaroslav Vrba
26:Nutritional mutualisms of Nepenthes and Roridula, Jonathan A. Moran, Bruce Anderson, Lijin Chin, Melinda Greenwood, and Charles Clarke
Part V: The future of carnivorous plants
27:Conservation of carnivorous plants, Charles Clarke, Adam Ross, and Barry Rice
28:Estimating the exposure of carnivorous plants to rapid climatic change, Matthew C. Fitzpatrick and Aaron M. Ellison
29:The future of research with carnivorous plants, Aaron M. Ellison and Lubomír Adamec
