Thilo Krueger

Curtin University · School of Molecular and Life Sciences

Drosera maanyaa-gooljoo, a new annual species of Drosera section Arachnopus from the remote Buccaneer Archipelago and Yampi Peninsula in the northwest Kimberley region of Western Australia, is described and illustrated. Drosera maanyaa-gooljoo is a distinctive species that differs in morphology and indumentum from all previously known taxa of D. se...

Chromosome number change is a driver of speciation in eukaryotic organisms. Carnivorous sundews in the plant genus Drosera L. exhibit single chromosome number variation both among and within species, especially in the Australian Drosera subg. Ergaleium D.C., potentially linked to atypical centromeres that span much of the length of the chromosomes....

Limb autotomy, the voluntary shedding of body parts as a strategy to escape predation or entrapment, is particularly common in insects and other arthropods that are frequently captured by the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. However, no study has previously examined the effectiveness of autotomy at facilitating escape from these passive, sessile pl...

The carnivorous Drosera microphylla complex from southwest Western Australia comprises a group of rare, narrowly endemic species that are potentially threatened by habitat destruction and illegal collection, thus highlighting a need for accurate taxonomic classification to facilitate conservation efforts. Following extensive fieldwork over two deca...

Chromosome number change is a driver of speciation in eukaryotic organisms. Carnivorous sundews, the plant genus Drosera L., exhibit single chromosome number variation among and within species, especially in the Australian Drosera subg. Ergaleium D.C., potentially linked to the presence of holocentromeres. We reviewed literature, verified chromosom...

Prey spectra (the number and composition of captured arthropods) represent a crucial aspect of carnivorous plant ecology, yet remain poorly studied. Traditional morphology-based approaches for prey identification are time-intensive, require specialists with considerable knowledge of arthropod taxonomy, and are hampered by high numbers of unidentifi...

Drosera allantostigma (N.G.Marchant & Lowrie) Lowrie & Conran is illustrated and described. The species is a tiny herbaceous carnivorous plant native to a single roadside location in Western Australia, from which it has not been observed in almost a decade. Weed encroachment, agricultural runoff and altered hydrology continue to affect the location...

A new annual species of Drosera section Arachnopus, Drosera margaritacea, from the western Kimberley region (Western Australia) is described and illustrated, including detailed comparisons with the morphologically most similar species, D. finlaysoniana. The latter name is lectotypified here. The global range of D. finlaysoniana is provided, includi...

Carnivorous plants (CPs)—those possessing specific strategies to attract, capture and kill animal prey and obtain nutrition through the absorption of their biomass—are harbingers of anthropogenic degradation and destruction of ecosystems. CPs exhibit highly specialised and often very sensitive ecologies, being generally restricted to nutrient-impov...

Even though carnivorous plants (CPs) are a popular focus of ecological research, surprisingly few studies have investigated their prey spectra (the number and composition of captured prey). This knowledge gap has important implications for our understanding of sympatric speciation processes in CPs and may potentially hinder effective conservation a...

The pygmy sundews (Drosera section Bryastrum) are the second-largest group of Australian Drosera in terms of species number following the tuberous sundews. According to the latest revisions (Fleischmann et al. 2018; Robinson et al. 2018) they currently comprise 51 species in southwest Western Australia and six named natural hybrids (Lowrie 2014; Lo...