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The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists
The adaptive significance of fruit colour has been investigated for over a century. While colour can fulfil various functions, the most commonly tested hypothesis is that it has evolved to increase fruit visual conspicuousness and thus promote detection and consumption by seed dispersing animals. Ho...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6155155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30250307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32604-x |
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author | Valenta, Kim Kalbitzer, Urs Razafimandimby, Diary Omeja, Patrick Ayasse, Manfred Chapman, Colin A. Nevo, Omer |
author_facet | Valenta, Kim Kalbitzer, Urs Razafimandimby, Diary Omeja, Patrick Ayasse, Manfred Chapman, Colin A. Nevo, Omer |
author_sort | Valenta, Kim |
collection | PubMed |
description | The adaptive significance of fruit colour has been investigated for over a century. While colour can fulfil various functions, the most commonly tested hypothesis is that it has evolved to increase fruit visual conspicuousness and thus promote detection and consumption by seed dispersing animals. However, fruit colour is a complex trait which is subjected to various constraints and selection pressures. As a result, the effect of animal selection on fruit colour are often difficult to identify, and several studies have failed to detect it. Here, we employ an integrative approach to examine what drives variation in fruit colour. We quantified the colour of ripe fruit and mature leaves of 97 tropical plant species from three study sites in Madagascar and Uganda. We used phylogenetically controlled models to estimate the roles of phylogeny, abiotic factors, and dispersal mode on fruit colour variation. Our results show that, independent of phylogeny and leaf coloration, mammal dispersed fruits are greener than bird dispersed fruits, while the latter are redder than the former. In addition, fruit colour does not correlate with leaf colour in the visible spectrum, but fruit reflection in the ultraviolet area of the spectrum is strongly correlated with leaf reflectance, emphasizing the role of abiotic factors in determining fruit colour. These results demonstrate that fruit colour is affected by both animal sensory ecology and abiotic factors and highlight the importance of an integrative approach which controls for the relevant confounding factors. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6155155 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61551552018-09-28 The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists Valenta, Kim Kalbitzer, Urs Razafimandimby, Diary Omeja, Patrick Ayasse, Manfred Chapman, Colin A. Nevo, Omer Sci Rep Article The adaptive significance of fruit colour has been investigated for over a century. While colour can fulfil various functions, the most commonly tested hypothesis is that it has evolved to increase fruit visual conspicuousness and thus promote detection and consumption by seed dispersing animals. However, fruit colour is a complex trait which is subjected to various constraints and selection pressures. As a result, the effect of animal selection on fruit colour are often difficult to identify, and several studies have failed to detect it. Here, we employ an integrative approach to examine what drives variation in fruit colour. We quantified the colour of ripe fruit and mature leaves of 97 tropical plant species from three study sites in Madagascar and Uganda. We used phylogenetically controlled models to estimate the roles of phylogeny, abiotic factors, and dispersal mode on fruit colour variation. Our results show that, independent of phylogeny and leaf coloration, mammal dispersed fruits are greener than bird dispersed fruits, while the latter are redder than the former. In addition, fruit colour does not correlate with leaf colour in the visible spectrum, but fruit reflection in the ultraviolet area of the spectrum is strongly correlated with leaf reflectance, emphasizing the role of abiotic factors in determining fruit colour. These results demonstrate that fruit colour is affected by both animal sensory ecology and abiotic factors and highlight the importance of an integrative approach which controls for the relevant confounding factors. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-09-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6155155/ /pubmed/30250307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32604-x Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Valenta, Kim Kalbitzer, Urs Razafimandimby, Diary Omeja, Patrick Ayasse, Manfred Chapman, Colin A. Nevo, Omer The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title | The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title_full | The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title_fullStr | The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title_full_unstemmed | The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title_short | The evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
title_sort | evolution of fruit colour: phylogeny, abiotic factors and the role of mutualists |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6155155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30250307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32604-x |
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