How does a tree (or any plant, really), know to evolve to produce a delicious fruit or a poison berry, a seed inside an impenetrable shell, or invent a type of flying machine, in order to reproduce? (Each of these examples exists in my backyard)

How do they receive feedback about their evolutionary experiments? How do they know it worked/failed. [10]

  • @db2
    link
    91 month ago

    It doesn’t. The fruit that gets eaten gets to make more via the spread seeds. The plant that’s bitter doesn’t get eaten before it can go to seed. It’s not more complicated than that.