The plant evolves to become much less visible to people

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research news

IMAGE: FRITILLARIA DELAVAYI IN A POPULATION WITH LOW COLLECTION PRESSURE view more CREDIT: YANG NIU

A plant used in traditional Chinese medicine has evolved to become less visible to humans, new research shows.

Scientists have found that Fritillaria delavayi plants, which live on the rocky slopes of China’s Hengduan Mountains, more closely match their environment in areas where they are heavily harvested.

This suggests that humans are “driving” the evolution of this species into new forms of color because better camouflaged plants have a better chance of survival.

The study was conducted by the Kunming Institute of Botany (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the University of Exeter.

“It is extraordinary to see how humans can have such a direct and dramatic impact on the coloring of wild organisms, not just their survival but their own evolution,” said Professor Martin Stevens, of the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Penryn Campus. of Exeter in Cornwall.

“Many plants appear to use mimicry to hide from herbivores who might eat them, but here we see the evolution of camouflage in response to human collectors.

“It is possible that humans have led the evolution of defensive strategies in other plant species, but surprisingly little research has examined it.”

In the new study, the researchers measured how well plants from different populations matched their mountain environment and how easy they were to harvest, and spoke with the local population to estimate the amount of harvesting at each location.

They found that the level of camouflage in plants correlated with harvest levels.

In a computer experiment, even the most camouflaged plants took longer to be detected by people.

Fritillaria delavayi is a perennial herb that has leaves – ranging in color from gray to brown to green – at a young age and produces a single flower per year after the fifth year.

The bulb of the fritillary species has been used in Chinese medicine for more than 2000 years, and in recent years, high prices have led to an increase in the yield.

“Like other camouflaged plants we have studied, we thought that this fritillary’s camouflage evolution was driven by herbivores, but we did not find such animals,” said Dr. Yang Niu, of the Kunming Institute of Botany. “Then we realized that the reason could have been that of humans.”

Professor Hang Sun, of the Kunming Institute of Botany, added: “Commercial harvesting is a much stronger selection pressure than many pressures in nature. “The current state of biodiversity on earth is determined both by nature and by ourselves.”

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The research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The article, published in the journal Current Biology, is titled: “Commercial collection drove the evolution of camouflage in an alpine plant.”

From EurekAlert!

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