School of Environment and Sustainability, Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC Canada.
Plant Signal Behav. 2012 Aug;7(8):957-60. doi: 10.4161/psb.20912. Epub 2012 Jul 27.
Nepenthes pitcher plants deploy tube-shaped pitchers to catch invertebrate prey; those of Nepenthes aristolochioides possess an unusual translucent dome. The hypothesis was tested that N. aristolochioides pitchers operate as light traps, by quantifying prey capture under three shade treatments. Flies are red-blind, with visual sensitivity maxima in the UV, blue, and green wavebands. Red celluloid filters were used to reduce the transmission of these wavebands into the interior of the pitchers. Those that were shaded at the rear showed a 3-fold reduction in Drosophila caught, relative to either unshaded control pitchers, or pitchers that were shaded at the front. Thus, light transmitted through the translucent dome is a fundamental component of N. aristolochioides' trapping mechanism.
猪笼草利用管状的捕虫笼来捕捉无脊椎猎物；其中，麻竹猪笼草的捕虫笼具有不寻常的半透明穹顶。该假说通过量化三种遮荫处理下的猎物捕获量来进行检验，即麻竹猪笼草的捕虫笼可以作为光陷阱。蝇类是红色盲，在紫外线、蓝色和绿色波段具有最大的视觉灵敏度。红色赛璐珞滤光片用于减少这些波段进入捕虫笼内部的传输。与未遮荫的对照捕虫笼或仅在前部遮荫的捕虫笼相比，后面遮荫的捕虫笼中捕获的果蝇减少了 3 倍。因此，透过半透明穹顶传输的光，是麻竹猪笼草捕虫机制的一个基本组成部分。
