Fruit scent as an honest signal for fruit quality.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Fleshy fruits evolved to be attractive to seed dispersers through various signals such as color and scent. Signals can evolve through different trajectories and have various degrees of reliability. The strongest substrate on which reliable signals can evolve is when there is an inherent link between signal and reward, rendering cheating costly or impossible. It was recently proposed that aliphatic esters in fruit scent may be predictive of sugar content due to their synthesis from products of sugar fermentation. We test this hypothesis on a case study of wild fig species (Ficus tiliifolia) from Madagascar, which relies on seed dispersal by lemurs.

Results

We found a strong positive correlation between signal (esters) and reward (sugar). We also found that non-este

SUBMITTER: Nevo O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9710009 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature