A flower's ability to mimic the sexually attractive traits of pollinators to lure them to its nectar has long fascinated scientists.
Flowers can't buy glasses and a wig to create a disguise, so how they came to pull off such convincing dupes, using only an existing toolkit of DNA, is baffling., and can look and smell irresistible to an unwitting insect Casanova, whose brief tryst among the petals leaves the insect laden with the Orchid's pollen, that it inevitably spreads to other flowers.
The appearance of these flowers varies greatly, and in some, the spots have transformed into green-black bumps that, to a fly, look exactly like it's female mate, awaiting seductively upon the petals.The evolution of this species' variety of features was recently mapped to determine the order in which the traits evolved to culminate in such a convincing deception: it revealed color first, then random positioning, then texture.
The iron-moving genes create spots that guide pollinators to the flower's center for a nectar reward, a tried-and-true pollination strategy flowers relied on long before sexual mimicry arose. The gene sequence usually involved in the production of a plant's root hairs is responsible for really bringing the dupe to life, causing the three dimensional shape and texture of the daisy's fly-like petal spots.
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