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A new form of mimicry: plant seeds mimic animal feces to facilitate dispersal by dung beetles
Mimicry is a recurring subject on this site, mainly because I’m fascinated by the precision with which natural selection can mold animals and plants to look like things they’re not. We’ve also seen examples of plants mimicking animals before, as in the orchids that mimic bees and wasps, fooling randy insect males into trying to copulate with the flowers (this deception promotes pollen transfer). But I think the following example is unique, for it involves plants whose seeds mimic animal feces. And the mimicry involves both the shape, size, and odor of the seeds.
What does the plant gain from this mimicry? It fools dung beetles, who apparently mistake the seeds for antelope dung. And dung beetles, as we all know, roll the dung balls away, bury them, and lay eggs in them, providing sustenance for their larvae. By fooling the beetles, the plant gets insects to not only disperse the seeds, but bury them, hiding them from seed predators and destructive fires, giving them a head start in germination.
This fascinating mimicry is described in a new article in Nature Plants (reference below, free access at link) written by a team of investigators from the Universities of Cape Town and of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. Here’s the duplicitous plant, Ceratocaryum argenteum, a rush-like angiosperm native to Cape Province, South Africa (photo from Rosa Rubicondior).
...
To see how many of these seeds got buried, the authors put out 195 of them in 31 locations. They found that 27% of the seeds were buried whole (presumably by dung beetles) within a day, under what they call “optimal moist conditions.” That’s a pretty good way to get your seeds moved to new habitat where they don’t have to compete with other seeds, and even planted underground. One can see how a plant tricking a beetle in this way could substantially increase the spread of the plant’s genes.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/a-new-and-bizarre-form-of-mimicry-plant-seeds-mimic-shape-and-smell-of-animal-feces-to-facilitate-dispersal-by-dung-beetles/
What does the plant gain from this mimicry? It fools dung beetles, who apparently mistake the seeds for antelope dung. And dung beetles, as we all know, roll the dung balls away, bury them, and lay eggs in them, providing sustenance for their larvae. By fooling the beetles, the plant gets insects to not only disperse the seeds, but bury them, hiding them from seed predators and destructive fires, giving them a head start in germination.
This fascinating mimicry is described in a new article in Nature Plants (reference below, free access at link) written by a team of investigators from the Universities of Cape Town and of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. Here’s the duplicitous plant, Ceratocaryum argenteum, a rush-like angiosperm native to Cape Province, South Africa (photo from Rosa Rubicondior).
...
To see how many of these seeds got buried, the authors put out 195 of them in 31 locations. They found that 27% of the seeds were buried whole (presumably by dung beetles) within a day, under what they call “optimal moist conditions.” That’s a pretty good way to get your seeds moved to new habitat where they don’t have to compete with other seeds, and even planted underground. One can see how a plant tricking a beetle in this way could substantially increase the spread of the plant’s genes.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/10/07/a-new-and-bizarre-form-of-mimicry-plant-seeds-mimic-shape-and-smell-of-animal-feces-to-facilitate-dispersal-by-dung-beetles/
http://www.nature.com/articles/nplants2015141
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