Dr. Omer Nevo
German Centre of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Biodiversity

Plant reproduction is strongly dependent on the ability to disperse the seeds away from the mother tree. One of the most successful strategies of achieving this is wrapping the seeds in a nutritious tissue - a fleshy fruit - to attract animal consumers to ingest the seed and, as a byproduct, disperse it. Animals differ in their dietary preferences, fruit handling capabilities, and sensory capacities. Attracting them, therefore, would require fruits to acquire traits matching their main seed dispersal agent. The talk will present results exploring how fruit traits have evolved to increase their attractiveness to seed-dispersing animals, particularly non-human primates; how animal sensory ecology responds to variation in fruit traits; and how primary and secondary attractants vary across plant species in relation to animal preference.