Profile

• Time Zone

  Central

  
  
• Gender

  (not set)

  
  
• Organization

  Northwestern University

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  My biggest passion within plant science is carnivorous plants. You are probably aware of the Venus flytrap, which uses leaves that snap shut when triggered by touch to capture insects. Have you ever thought about where plants like that came from, though? Additionally, did you know there are dozens of different carnivorous plants, most of which are not related to one another? The ability of a plant to catch and eat prey actually evolved several different times as a means to survive in nutrient-poor soil. All plants need minerals like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to grow and survive, and most plants get these from the soil through their roots. However, carnivorous plants tend to grow in environments with very poor nutrition in the soil—or sometimes with no soil at all! This means that they had to develop another method of acquiring nutrients, and that turned out to be carnivory.
  
  One carnivorous plant I am interested in is Sarracenia purpurea, or the purple pitcher plant. This plant’s pitcher-shaped leaves collect rainwater, which they use as a means of trapping insects that are enticed by the sugary nectar around the lip of the pitcher. Insects fall into the pitcher and drown in the fluid, after which they are digested by the plant, which absorbs the minerals it needs to survive from their bodies. However, not everything that enters the pitchers dies—there are entire communities of bacteria, protozoa, and even mosquito larvae that live and thrive in the pitcher fluid. I want to know why that is! I am developing an experiment to investigate how the organisms living in the pitchers help the plants absorb nutrients.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  I love weird plants! If it looks bizarre, smells bad, or eats bugs, I probably like it. My favorites are carnivorous plants, but I also love ferns and bryophytes (plants like mosses and liverworts that evolved long before things like flowers and trees).

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  (not set)

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  (not set)

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  (not set)

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  (not set)

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

Photosynthesis v. Cell Respiration Cael Dant Nov 18 at 02:28pm

Hey all, thank you for your updates and sorry I missed them! Your conclusions are very clear and it sounds like you have a good understanding of why you got the results you did. Your results also matched your hypothesis, which is great. Was there…

more

Hey all, thank you for your updates and sorry I missed them! Your conclusions are very clear and it sounds like you have a good understanding of why you got the results you did. Your results also matched your hypothesis, which is great. Was there anything that happened that surprised you? Why do you think the breath water didn't cause the leaves to float as quickly as the sodium bicarbonate?

24fpandachspos project 4 Cael Dant Nov 18 at 02:16pm

Hey everyone, thank you for the updates and sorry to get back to you so late! What kind of plant did you grow for the seed to tree lab? I'd love to hear more about that. For the photosynthesis lab, it sounds like you all got a good understanding…

more

Hey everyone, thank you for the updates and sorry to get back to you so late! What kind of plant did you grow for the seed to tree lab? I'd love to hear more about that. For the photosynthesis lab, it sounds like you all got a good understanding of how plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Did anything happen with the leaf discs in the breath water? If not, why do you think the result there was different from the baking soda?

Photosynthesis v. Cell Respiration Cael Dant Oct 28 at 11:43am

Hey everyone, thanks for updating your project info! Sorry to get back to you so late. Have you already run your experiment? Did the results match your hypothesis that the sodium bicarbonate water would make the most leaves reach the top?