ABSTRACT
Carnivorous and protocamivorous plants Carnivorous plants and myrmeeophilous plants represent two metabolic ways in which plants have adapted to poor soil, and they are so named according to the ways they use nutritive substances derived from animals. Another way plants can be adapted to life in poor soils is by the use of symbiotic relationships between their roots and mycorhizal fungi, an adap tation not involving animal interventions. Carnivorous plants trap insects and other arthropods, even (but rarely) birds and mammals, in a specially modified leaf adapted to trap these organisms. Myrmeeophilous plants make use of the excreta and cadavers abandoned by ants in specialized chambers and are protected by the ants. The flowers of both plant types are fertilized by flying insects, a necessity even for plants associated with other arthropods.
