Why do hot pepper plants exist? Wouldn’t it have been an evolutionary disadvantage to have fruits that were painful for animals to eat?
In: Biology
Fruits as a dispersal method is VERY effective, so effective that it sometimes gives plants the leeway to evolve a preference towards certain animals dispersing their seeds.
Birds frequently tend to be very favorable to seed dispersal to many plants over mammals, and as such we end up with a wide variety of fruits, usually berries, that evolved to be poisonous or unpleasant to mammals to some degree, but are harmless for birds.
In the case of Peppers, birds can’t really taste the capsaicin that gives them their heat, which caused fewer mammals to try feeding on them. Its also theorized that capsaicin doubles as a somewhat effective antifungal and deterrent for insects. However obviously capsaicin is overall brief and harmless even if a mammal eats the peppers. Some fruits engage in much more harsh measures to make sure birds are the main consumers, even using potentially lethal toxins, such as Pokeweed or the infamously dangerous Deadly Nightshade(a distant relative of Peppers by the way). If you encounter any sort of berry or small fruit that’s considered poisonous to humans, its probably evolved this way because it wants birds to eat it.
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