Drosera

"• Carnivory in plants is presumed to be an adaptation to a low nutrient environment. Nitrogen (N) from carnivory is expected to become a less important component of their N budget as root N availability increases.
• We investigated the uptake of N via roots versus prey of the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia growing in ombrotrophic bogs along a latitudinal nitrogen deposition gradient through Sweden, using a natural abundance stable isotope mass balance technique.
• D. rotundifolia plants receiving the lowest level of N deposition obtained a greater proportion of N from prey (57%) than plants on bogs with higher N deposition (22% at intermediate and 33% at the highest deposition). When adjusted for differences in plant mass this pattern was also present when considering total prey N uptake (66, 26 and 26 µg prey N plant-1 at the low, intermediate and high N deposition sites respectively). The pattern of mass adjusted root N uptake was opposite to this (47, 75 and 86 µg N plant-1).
• D. rotundifolia plants in this study switched from reliance on prey N to reliance on root derived N as a result of increasing N availability due to atmospheric N deposition."

The antimicrobial activity of three different extracts (hexanic, ethyl acetate, methanol) obtained from Brazilian Drosera species (D. communis, D. montana var. montana, D. brevifolia, D. villosa var. graomogolensis, D. villosa var. villosa, Drosera sp. 1, and Drosera sp. 2 ) were tested against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Enterococcus faecium (ATCC23212), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC27853), Escherichia coli (ATCC11229), Salmonella choleraesuis (ATCC10708), Klebsiella pneumoniae (ATCC13883), and Candida albicans (a human isolate). Better antimicrobial activity was observed with D. communis and D. montana var. montana ethyl acetate extracts. Phytochemical analyses from D. communis, D. montana var. montana and D. brevifolia yielded 5-hydroxy-2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (plumbagin); long chain aliphatic hydrocarbons were isolated from D. communis and from D. villosa var. villosa, a mixture of long chain aliphatic alcohols and carboxylic acids, was isolated from D. communis and 3b-O-acetylaleuritolic acid from D. villosa var. villosa.