Dataset Information

It's Not Easy Being Blue: Are There Olfactory and Visual Trade-Offs in Plant Signalling?

ABSTRACT: Understanding the signals used by plants to attract seed disperses is a pervasive quest in evolutionary and sensory biology. Fruit size, colour, and odour variation have long been discussed in the controversial context of dispersal syndromes targeting olfactory-oriented versus visually-oriented foragers. Trade-offs in signal investment could impose important physiological constraints on plants, yet have been largely ignored. Here, we measure the reflectance and volatile organic compounds of a community of Malagasy plants and our results indicate that extant plant signals may represent a trade-off between olfactory and chromatic signals. Blue pigments are the most visually-effective--blue is a colour that is visually salient to all known seed dispersing animals within the study system. Additionally, plants with blue-reflecting fruits are less odiferous than plants that reflect primarily in other regions of the colour spectrum.

SUBMITTER: Valenta K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4482676 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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It's Not Easy Being Blue: Are There Olfactory and Visual Trade-Offs in Plant Signalling?

Valenta Kim K Brown Kevin A KA Melin Amanda D AD Monckton Spencer K SK Styler Sarah A SA Jackson Derek A DA Chapman Colin A CA

PloS one 20150626 6

Understanding the signals used by plants to attract seed disperses is a pervasive quest in evolutionary and sensory biology. Fruit size, colour, and odour variation have long been discussed in the controversial context of dispersal syndromes targeting olfactory-oriented versus visually-oriented foragers. Trade-offs in signal investment could impose important physiological constraints on plants, yet have been largely ignored. Here, we measure the reflectance and volatile organic compounds of a co ...[more]

PMID: 26115040

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Dataset Information

It's Not Easy Being Blue: Are There Olfactory and Visual Trade-Offs in Plant Signalling?

Publications

It's Not Easy Being Blue: Are There Olfactory and Visual Trade-Offs in Plant Signalling?

Similar Datasets

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