Growth and tissue nutrient responses of adults of Sarracenia alata to prey exclusion, nutrient addition, and neighbor reduction.

Abstract

Carnivorous plants are often associated with nutrient-poor soils and fires. Fire can decrease available soil nitrogen (N) and increase light availability, thus potentially favoring carnivory if prey provide N. Prey can also be a source of phosphorus (P), however, and soil P-availability often increases and competition for prey can decrease following fire. Carnivory thus might be more advantageous before fire when prey and/or soil P are more limiting. We examined nutrient limitation of growth in a carnivorous plant, Sarracenia alata, in a wet pine savanna in southeastern Mississippi, USA. We measured growth and N:P tissue concentration responses of adult plants to a factorial arrangement of prey capture, neighbor reduction, and addition of N, P, and ash to the soil. We tested two hypotheses: (1) Prey provide N, and neighbor reduction and ash addition increase light and soil P and thus the benefit of carnivory; and (2) Prey provide P, neighbor reduction increases prey and/or P, and prey exclusion reduces growth the most when neighbors are not reduced. The exclusion of prey reduced growth more when neighbors were not reduced, an effect that was ameliorated slightly by the addition of P to the soil (the P-limitation hypothesis). Prey exclusion caused a decrease in tissue P when N was added to the soil. The results of this study with adult plants differed from those of a previous study using small juvenile plants, suggesting a shift from light limitation to P and prey limitation with increasing size.