An
example of brief notes to recall an author’s points:
Coevolving mutual interdependence
Beauty and the Beast: The coevolution of Plants and Animals, by Susan Grant
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984.)
10
Chapters on the fundamental importance of symbiosis.
R versus K species | Coevolution | photograph of mutual need | Insects
Did flowers disperse so widely because insects are so widely dispersed ?
ch 1:
“Mutual
Injury, mutual Aid: Patterns in
Coevolution.”
Originally beetles pollinated and ate the flower, still do in magnolias; but bees are the primary pollinator for wild angiosperms and many grain and fruit crops!
page
4)
“Interdependence
has replaced original neutrality of injury.”
“animals’
impact can be great on the transport [dispersal] and survival of seeds.”
“careful
studies have found that these algae play an immense role in feeding their animal
hosts.”
“role
of ants in relation to flowering plants . . . “ has changed. . . . “from
villain to hero.”
page
5)
“coevolved
relationships are always vulnerable to change.”
“r” species are opportunistic colonizers who exploit disturbance, while
“k”
species need stability to prosper.
ch 4: is about Allelopathy
plants
secrete poisonous chemicals to ward off competition and reduce predation.
“Natural
selection as a result has favored chemically armed plants; they are abundant
in all dry-land communities.”
flavonoids
protect land plants from the sun and are distasteful to predators.
35)
California Indians washed Tannic acids from the acorn to eat the fruit of the
oaks.
tannins
in China black teas induce the risk for esophageal cancer.
terpenoids
are predator repellents.
“one ecologist has even suggested that human cookery originated in the need to detoxify abundant and nutritious seeds of wild legumes."
Insects
are most likely the pollinating agents that led to a spread of angiosperms hence
the trees and flowering shrubs we see today are the architecture of their desires
.
116)
“bees remain essentially independent of humanity. . . . that very independence
is part of their perennial fascination.”
Lepidopteran, or butterfly in search of nectar, Japan, 2007 JVS.
8:
warm blooded pollinators bats and birds
Martin
Johnson Heade's painting of birds and orchids of South American rainforests.
120)
plants that have coevolved with hummingbirds produce flowers that are odorless,
bright, and rich in nectar.
“human
involvement with the genetic pollination of plants is substantial
* 1420 megahertz is the “broadcast” frequency of hydrogen atoms
