WEBVTT - Why Did Fruit Evolve in Different Colors?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Bogle bomb here. Imagine having to get a specific

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<v Speaker 1>person's attention in a crowded room without being able to

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<v Speaker 1>move a muscle or make any noise at all. It

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<v Speaker 1>sounds impossible, doesn't it. Well, this is the predicament plants

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<v Speaker 1>have found themselves in since time immemorial. How does one

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<v Speaker 1>get the attention of a fast moving animal when one

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<v Speaker 1>is silent, motionless, and also a shrub. Plants have solved

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<v Speaker 1>the problem, though, because necessity is the mother of invention,

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<v Speaker 1>and also because they've had around a hundred million years

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<v Speaker 1>to work on it. Many angiosperms of flowering plants, that is,

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<v Speaker 1>require the help of animals to spread their seeds around, since,

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<v Speaker 1>as we've discussed, they're incapable of doing so themselves. It's

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<v Speaker 1>one thing for mango treated drop its fruit and grow

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<v Speaker 1>another little tree right underneath the parent, but it's quite

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<v Speaker 1>another for a monkey to take a piece of fruit

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<v Speaker 1>half a mile away and drop the seed in a

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<v Speaker 1>previously mango free zone. This is where the rubber meets

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<v Speaker 1>the road when it comes to angiosperm dissemination and the

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<v Speaker 1>evolution and ultimate thriving and survival of these plants has

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<v Speaker 1>depended on individual species concocting new ways to manipulate the

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<v Speaker 1>animals they're most likely to come in contact with. Two

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<v Speaker 1>recent studies out of Germany examined the mechanisms by which

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<v Speaker 1>plants learned to flag down the right animals. It turns

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<v Speaker 1>out that those sound and movement are good strategies for

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<v Speaker 1>getting someone's attention. Animal heads are also turned by smell

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<v Speaker 1>and color, and according to this research, plants have worked

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<v Speaker 1>those angles pretty hard. The first study, published in the

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<v Speaker 1>journal Biology Letters, investigates how the color of certain fruits

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<v Speaker 1>can attract specific seed dispersers. The research team compared experiments

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<v Speaker 1>with fruit eating primates and wildlife preserves in both Uganda

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<v Speaker 1>and on the island of Madagascar. They found that fruit

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<v Speaker 1>bearing plants had evolved to cater to the specific visual

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<v Speaker 1>capabilities of the main seed dispersing animals in each place,

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<v Speaker 1>though the landscapes in the two parks are very similar.

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<v Speaker 1>Ugandan seed dispersers, monkeys, apes, and birds have tricolor vision

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<v Speaker 1>like humans, whereas the lemurs in Madagascar are red green

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<v Speaker 1>color blind. The ripe berries on fruiting plants reflected this

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<v Speaker 1>in Uganda ripe red fruit on dark green foliage showed

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<v Speaker 1>up better to the animals native to that area, whereas

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<v Speaker 1>in Madagascar, the ready to eat fruits were mostly yellow,

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<v Speaker 1>a color more visible to lemurs. Similarly, according to the

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<v Speaker 1>other study published in the journal Science Advances, the fruit

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<v Speaker 1>in Madagascar is also more fragrant. Those plants didn't want

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<v Speaker 1>to leave their seed dispersal entirely up to the visual

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<v Speaker 1>acuity of a bunch of lemurs. Ripe figs on the

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<v Speaker 1>island are very smelly, which makes sense given that color

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<v Speaker 1>blind lemurs would have been able to find the smell

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<v Speaker 1>east fruits in the forest more easily than they could

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<v Speaker 1>find the most brightly colored. The figs that produced the

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<v Speaker 1>most odoriferous cocktail of chemical compounds as they ripened were eaten,

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<v Speaker 1>and thus their seeds dispersed more often on Madagascar, suggesting

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<v Speaker 1>that plants know exactly what they're doing, evolutionarily speaking. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>So It was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by

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<v Speaker 1>Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other

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<v Speaker 1>advantageous topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot Com.