Why are certain plants and their flowers/fruit different colors? Sounds like a dumb question but do different pigments/colors give any potential benefits like increased sunlight absorption or anything of that aspect?
In: Biology
A flower’s job is to attract pollinators so that the plant can reproduce. Different animals have different eyes, so flowers evolved to attract whatever pollinators they prefer. It’s not just the color either. There’s one flower that evolved to look like the female of its pollinator in order to trick males to try to mate with it and pollinate the flower in the process.
A fruit’s job is to be eaten so that the seeds are pooped out somewhere else. I don’t know too much about the coloring of fruits, but I imagine they tend to have bright colors in order to attract hungry animals.
That’s mostly an example of co-evolution. The colours and patterns of flowers evolved together with the insects pollinating them. The insects get a signal of “here there is food”, and the plant can be sure that it gets insects which will spread its pollen.
Theres a couple different colors of chlorophyll, which are the pigments in plants that absorb light for photosynthesis. Those appearly mostly green, with some being purple or red. Flowers usually appear in different colors more suited for attracting pollinators like bees. They need them to spread pollen around to other members of the same species.
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