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Looking beyond simply “medicinal” properties, there are examples of plants that have evolved their chemical composition in response to animals. Hot peppers, for
by nkrisc 2y ago
Looking beyond simply “medicinal” properties, there are examples of plants that have evolved their chemical composition in response to animals. Hot peppers, for example. The capsaicin only affects mammals, not birds. Birds can eat the fruit and more widely disperse their seeds than mammals would. It’s advantageous to the plants that birds eat the fruit instead of mammals.
So it’s not unreasonable that other plants may have also developed specific chemicals in response to some pressure from animals.
Though in a twist it turns out that one specific mammal has spread hot peppers far more than any birds ever before.
- amelius 2y ago> So it’s not unreasonable that other plants may have also developed specific chemicals in response to some pressure from animals. Wouldn't it make most sense for plants to develop chemicals that kill us, rather than cure us from a disease?
- nkrisc 2y agoI don’t mean that medicinal plants developed those properties to benefit us, but rather it may have evolved as a response to some animal for some purpose, and it happens to be beneficial to us in some way. Take caffeine for example, likely it evolved as a defense against pests.
- Modified3019 2y agoCaffeine at low levels in flowers can stimulate insect activity and even potentially memory, increasing pollination activity. At higher concentrations yeah it’s an insecticide.
- nkrisc 2y agoCool, I didn’t know that. But all the same, the same principle applies.
- analog31 2y agoPossibly too costly. From what I've read, every chemical defense has a metabolic cost. This is why antibiotic resistant bacteria will lose their resistance over many generations if not constantly challenged by the antibiotic. On the other hand, some plants do kill us.
- tylerflick 2y agoPeppers evolved to produce capsaicin because mammals chew on vegetation in a molar fashion which destroys seeds (birds do not). In fact, the majority of capsaicin in a pepper exists in the pith, where the seeds attach.