Executive Summary : | Utricularia L. (Lentibulariaceae), the largest and the most intriguing carnivorous genus, is distributed throughout the world with great species richness and diversity (Taylor, 1989). The genus has a unique body plan among flowering plants, in which true roots, shoots and leaves are absent. The vegetative parts are usually found concealed in the substratum or sunk in water or soil according to their habitats. The genus consists of around 265 species in the world (Taylor, 1989, Fleischmann, 2012, 2015; Delprete, 2014; Rutishauser, 2015; Kumar et al., 2018; Arya et al., 2020; Biju et al., 2020; Hong et al., 2021). However, according to POWO (2022), there are 292 accepted names. Currently the genus is represented by 42 species in India (Janarthanam & Henry, 1992; Yadav et al., 2000, 2005, Kumar et al., 2018; Arya et al., 2020; Biju et al., 2020). The species are mostly found in tropical and subtropical regions, with a few exceptions in temperate zones, mainly as aquatic (free-floating or anchored), terrestrial, lithophytic or epiphytic herbs. The genus Utricularia has considerable significance among all flowering plants. The prey capturing mechanism made the genus peculiar and it has proved to be an ideal system for studying biological processes of predator-prey interaction among the carnivorous plants (Albert et al., 2010). The study of the evolution of genome and chromosome of Genlisea aurea A.st.-Hil and Utricularia gibba L. was a milestone in the evolutionary biology. The study of genome miniaturization events and the discovery of unusually smallest genome of Genlisea aurea (63.6 Mb) and Utricularia gibba (88 Mb), replaced the model plant Arabidopsis, since, the genome of Arabidopsis is 1.5 times larger than these species (Greilhuber et al., 2006; Ibarra-Laclette et al., 2013; Fleischmann et al., 2014; Velebra et al., 2014). Now, they are excellent model organisms for studying the evolutionary mechanisms of genome contraction. Though Utricularia possess complex trap and trapping mechanisms among carnivorous plants, and several other unique and distinctive features, the genus got only little emphasis on the origin, development and evolution of traps and trapping mechanisms. The proposed study aims to examine the structure and function of the suction traps of selected taxa of Utricularia, representing all the eight sections occurring in India and all life forms (terrestrial, aquatic and epiphytic). A detailed morphological and anatomical study of traps will be carried out based on light microscopy (LM), scanning electron microscopy (sEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and to test whether the life forms correlate with their habitat and their functional and morphological traits. |