Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Plant-animal interactions are important pathways for the transfer of energy within ecosystems, where both advantageous and unfavorable interactions support ecosystem health. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Plant-animal interactions can take on important ecological functions and manifest in a variety of combinations of favorable and unfavorable associations, for ...
Development of new crop plant varieties that were resistant to some diseases favored rapid evolution in pathogen populations to overcome those plant defenses. That, in turn, required the development of yet new resistant crop plant varieties, producing an ongoing cycle of reciprocal evolution in crop plants and diseases that continues to this day.
Pollination has driven the coevolution of flowering plants and their animal pollinators for over 100 million years. See also: Pollination and Plant-pollinator interactions In pollination, pollinators including insects ( entomophily ), some birds ( ornithophily ), and some bats , transfer pollen from a male flower part to a female flower part ...
Cooperation exists not only in humans but in other animals as well. The diversity of taxa that exhibits cooperation is quite large, ranging from zebra herds to pied babblers to African elephants . Many animal and plant species cooperate with both members of their own species and with members of other species.
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
In order to attract animals, these plants evolved a set of morphological characters such as fruit colour, mass, and persistence correlated to particular seed dispersal agents. [81] For example, plants may evolve conspicuous fruit colours to attract avian frugivores, and birds may learn to associate such colours with a food resource.
The urban ecosystem is a place of extremities and makes for fast evolution. Higher rates of phenotypic change have been observed in urban areas compared to natural and nonurban anthropogenic systems. [7] A field of study has emerged regarding urban evolution in which the adaptations of animals and plants to urban environments are studied.
Beginning of animal evolution. [54] [55] 720–630 Ma Possible global glaciation [56] [57] which increased the atmospheric oxygen and decreased carbon dioxide, and was either caused by land plant evolution [58] or resulted in it. [59] Opinion is divided on whether it increased or decreased biodiversity or the rate of evolution. [60] [61] [62 ...