Ecology and Conservation Status
Nepenthes bicalcarata is endemic to Borneo. It is most common in the peat swamp forests of the western coast of the island, which stretch across Sarawak, Sabah, Kalimantan, and Brunei. There it often grows in the shade of the ubiquitous dipterocarp Shorea albida. Nepenthes bicalcarata also occurs in kerangas forest and has even been recorded from white sand heath forests in Sarawak and East Kalimantan. The species is often sympatric with N. ampullaria in these habitats.
Specimens growing in undisturbed peat swamp forest, where sunlight is greatly diffused and high humidity prevails, reach the largest dimensions. Nepenthes bicalcarata has a shallow root system that only penetrates the top layer of peat and leaf litter, to a depth of about 25 cm. Below this, high concentrations of tannins and alkaloids render the substrate toxic.
Nepenthes bicalcarata is generally found below 300 m in altitude, although Johannes Gottfried Hallier reported a single collection in 1894 from between 700 and 950 m above sea level.
The conservation status of N. bicalcarata is listed as Vulnerable on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species based on an assessment carried out in 2000. In 1997, Charles Clarke informally classified the species as Near Threatened based on the IUCN criteria. This agrees with the conservation status assigned to N. bicalcarata by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
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