Abstract

In North Carolina, a rare sub-species of the purple pitcher plant, S. purpurea var. montana, occurs in very small and isolated populations. The isolation or size of the population could have an impact on the diversity or abundance of the inquiline community the leaves harbor, which may in turn affect the fitness of the plant population. Sampling was conducted at eight S. purpurea populations occurring across four counties in western North Carolina. Invertebrate species richness varied among pitchers from 0 to 10 species and total abundance across species ranged from 0 to 364 individuals. Our results suggest that plant population size and isolation from nearest neighboring population affect inquiline community diversity more so than they affect inquiline species richness. In addition to the effects of plant population size and isolation, we also found temporal or phenological effects on inquiline community richness and diversity; plants that flowered were found to have inquiline communities with significantly higher species richness and diversity for the month of August but not for the months of June and July.

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