1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff, 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:10,039 Speaker 1: Lauren Bogle bomb here. Imagine having to get a specific 3 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:12,800 Speaker 1: person's attention in a crowded room without being able to 4 00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:15,280 Speaker 1: move a muscle or make any noise at all. It 5 00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 1: sounds impossible, doesn't it. Well, this is the predicament plants 6 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:21,840 Speaker 1: have found themselves in since time immemorial. How does one 7 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:23,920 Speaker 1: get the attention of a fast moving animal when one 8 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,200 Speaker 1: is silent, motionless, and also a shrub. Plants have solved 9 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:30,800 Speaker 1: the problem, though, because necessity is the mother of invention, 10 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,480 Speaker 1: and also because they've had around a hundred million years 11 00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:37,000 Speaker 1: to work on it. Many angiosperms of flowering plants, that is, 12 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:40,080 Speaker 1: require the help of animals to spread their seeds around, since, 13 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,760 Speaker 1: as we've discussed, they're incapable of doing so themselves. It's 14 00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:46,160 Speaker 1: one thing for mango treated drop its fruit and grow 15 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,120 Speaker 1: another little tree right underneath the parent, but it's quite 16 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:51,320 Speaker 1: another for a monkey to take a piece of fruit 17 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,360 Speaker 1: half a mile away and drop the seed in a 18 00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 1: previously mango free zone. This is where the rubber meets 19 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:00,280 Speaker 1: the road when it comes to angiosperm dissemination and the 20 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,560 Speaker 1: evolution and ultimate thriving and survival of these plants has 21 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: depended on individual species concocting new ways to manipulate the 22 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,840 Speaker 1: animals they're most likely to come in contact with. Two 23 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:13,880 Speaker 1: recent studies out of Germany examined the mechanisms by which 24 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:17,280 Speaker 1: plants learned to flag down the right animals. It turns 25 00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:19,640 Speaker 1: out that those sound and movement are good strategies for 26 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:23,199 Speaker 1: getting someone's attention. Animal heads are also turned by smell 27 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:26,960 Speaker 1: and color, and according to this research, plants have worked 28 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,040 Speaker 1: those angles pretty hard. The first study, published in the 29 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:33,479 Speaker 1: journal Biology Letters, investigates how the color of certain fruits 30 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:38,119 Speaker 1: can attract specific seed dispersers. The research team compared experiments 31 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: with fruit eating primates and wildlife preserves in both Uganda 32 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:44,920 Speaker 1: and on the island of Madagascar. They found that fruit 33 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 1: bearing plants had evolved to cater to the specific visual 34 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,040 Speaker 1: capabilities of the main seed dispersing animals in each place, 35 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: though the landscapes in the two parks are very similar. 36 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,400 Speaker 1: Ugandan seed dispersers, monkeys, apes, and birds have tricolor vision 37 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:02,320 Speaker 1: like humans, whereas the lemurs in Madagascar are red green 38 00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:06,000 Speaker 1: color blind. The ripe berries on fruiting plants reflected this 39 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,480 Speaker 1: in Uganda ripe red fruit on dark green foliage showed 40 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:12,119 Speaker 1: up better to the animals native to that area, whereas 41 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 1: in Madagascar, the ready to eat fruits were mostly yellow, 42 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:19,480 Speaker 1: a color more visible to lemurs. Similarly, according to the 43 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:22,640 Speaker 1: other study published in the journal Science Advances, the fruit 44 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 1: in Madagascar is also more fragrant. Those plants didn't want 45 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:28,799 Speaker 1: to leave their seed dispersal entirely up to the visual 46 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:32,000 Speaker 1: acuity of a bunch of lemurs. Ripe figs on the 47 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: island are very smelly, which makes sense given that color 48 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:37,440 Speaker 1: blind lemurs would have been able to find the smell 49 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:39,880 Speaker 1: east fruits in the forest more easily than they could 50 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:43,000 Speaker 1: find the most brightly colored. The figs that produced the 51 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:46,560 Speaker 1: most odoriferous cocktail of chemical compounds as they ripened were eaten, 52 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:51,000 Speaker 1: and thus their seeds dispersed more often on Madagascar, suggesting 53 00:02:51,040 --> 00:03:00,000 Speaker 1: that plants know exactly what they're doing, evolutionarily speaking. Today's 54 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:01,960 Speaker 1: So It was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by 55 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,200 Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other 56 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:19,079 Speaker 1: advantageous topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot Com.