1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:11,600 Speaker 1: Lauren voel Bomb here with another classic podcast episode. This 3 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:15,440 Speaker 1: one looks into the beautiful diversity of fruits and flowers 4 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:19,919 Speaker 1: and how plants evolved them in order to attract not us, 5 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:26,080 Speaker 1: but a variety of local non human animals. Hey brain Stuff, 6 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:29,120 Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here. Imagine having to get a specific 7 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: person's attention in a crowded room without being able to 8 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:34,320 Speaker 1: move a muscle or make any noise at all. It 9 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:37,960 Speaker 1: sounds impossible, doesn't it. Well, this is the predicament plants 10 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:40,960 Speaker 1: have found themselves in since time immemorial. How does one 11 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:43,000 Speaker 1: get the attention of a fast moving animal when one 12 00:00:43,040 --> 00:00:47,280 Speaker 1: is silent, motionless, and also a shrub. Plants have solved 13 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:49,800 Speaker 1: the problem, though, because necessity is the mother of invention, 14 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:52,520 Speaker 1: and also because they've had around one hundred million years 15 00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:56,080 Speaker 1: to work on it. Many angiosperms of flowering plants, that is, 16 00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 1: require the help of animals to spread their seeds around, since, 17 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:02,800 Speaker 1: as we've discuss, they're incapable of doing so themselves. It's 18 00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:05,000 Speaker 1: one thing for mango tree to drop its fruit and 19 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 1: grow another little tree right underneath the parent, but It's 20 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:10,120 Speaker 1: quite another for a monkey to take a piece of 21 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:12,320 Speaker 1: fruit half a mile away and drop the seed in 22 00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:15,959 Speaker 1: a previously mango free zone. This is where the rubber 23 00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:19,160 Speaker 1: meets the road when it comes to angiosperm dissemination, and 24 00:01:19,240 --> 00:01:22,240 Speaker 1: the evolution and ultimate thriving and survival of these plants 25 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:26,320 Speaker 1: has depended on individual species concocting new ways to manipulate 26 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,680 Speaker 1: the animals they're most likely to come in contact with. 27 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,720 Speaker 1: Two recent studies out of Germany examined the mechanisms by 28 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:36,039 Speaker 1: which plants learned to flag down the right animals. It 29 00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:38,560 Speaker 1: turns out that those sound and movement are good strategies 30 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,920 Speaker 1: for getting someone's attention. Animal heads are also turned by 31 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,679 Speaker 1: smell and color, and according to this research, plants have 32 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:49,040 Speaker 1: worked those angles pretty hard. The first study, published in 33 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:52,200 Speaker 1: the journal Biology Letters, investigates how the color of certain 34 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:56,520 Speaker 1: fruits can attract specific seed dispersers. The research team compared 35 00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:59,800 Speaker 1: experiments with fruit eating primates and wildlife preserves in both 36 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:03,360 Speaker 1: the use Uganda and on the island of Madagascar. They 37 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:05,600 Speaker 1: found that fruit bearing plants had evolved to cater to 38 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:09,320 Speaker 1: the specific visual capabilities of the main seed dispersing animals 39 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:12,200 Speaker 1: in each place. Though the landscapes in the two parks 40 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 1: are very similar. Ugandan seed dispersers, monkeys, apes, and birds 41 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:20,520 Speaker 1: have tricolor vision like humans, whereas the lemurs in Madagascar 42 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:24,040 Speaker 1: are red green color blind. The ripe berries on fruiting 43 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,560 Speaker 1: plants reflected this. In Uganda, ripe red fruit on dark 44 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:29,960 Speaker 1: green foliage showed up better to the animals native to 45 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:33,239 Speaker 1: that area, whereas in Madagascar, the ready to eat fruits 46 00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:37,800 Speaker 1: were mostly yellow, a color more visible to lemurs. Similarly, 47 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,160 Speaker 1: according to the other study published in the journal Science Advances, 48 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:44,800 Speaker 1: the fruit in Madagascar is also more fragrant. Those plants 49 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:47,280 Speaker 1: didn't want to leave their seed dispersal entirely up to 50 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:50,840 Speaker 1: the visual acuity of a bunch of lemurs. Ripe figs 51 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,080 Speaker 1: on the island are very smelly, which makes sense given 52 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,280 Speaker 1: that colorblind lemurs would have been able to find the 53 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,919 Speaker 1: smelliest fruits in the forest more easily than they could 54 00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:02,040 Speaker 1: find the most brightly colored. The figs that produced the 55 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: most odoriferous cocktail of chemical compounds as they ripened were eaten, 56 00:03:05,919 --> 00:03:10,080 Speaker 1: and thus their seeds dispersed more often on Madagascar, suggesting 57 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:18,040 Speaker 1: that plants know exactly what they're doing. Evolutionarily speaking. Today's 58 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:20,560 Speaker 1: episode is based on the article Plants evolve scents and 59 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:23,840 Speaker 1: colors to attract animals. Four Seed Dispersal on how stuffworks 60 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,200 Speaker 1: dot Com written by Jesslinshields. Brain Stuff is production of 61 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:29,880 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is 62 00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:33,360 Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 63 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,760 Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 64 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:37,800 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.