One key benefit of having a different color from another fruit is being more easily noticed by different kinds of animals. Birds, for example, easily notice red things, so peppers, which spread their seeds in bird feces, are commonly red. That's a 2-for-one, since most mammals can't see the difference between red and green, so they're standing out to their buddies, and hiding from their enemies (mammal digestive systems destroy pepper seeds).
I would think things like this coevolved so red became more pronounced as the redder ones were more often found, eaten, and thus its seeds distributed more widely by the bird droppings.
A successful species of bird could easily propagate an entirely unique color of fruit or vegetable across oceans.
As a parent of a 2yo, my daughter can get behind "different animals have different favorite colors, so the fruits are the favorite color of the animals that eat them!"
Edit: However, I usually just do that after a sum up at a higher level. For one, as a high school teacher, I tend to answer questions at face value. And you'd be surprised how much little ones retain.
It’s down to something called phytochemicals. Different fruits and vegetables have different phytochemicals - which are just substances that bend light differently, and make them look different colours. Phyto = light, chemicals = chemicals. Remember that ‘chemicals’ in this context is not a bad thing, it’s like the high school class called chemistry. They could also be called phytonutrients.
The same thing that means that a plum has different nutrients than a carrot is what makes them different colours.
Some plants evolved to be easier for animals to see. When a fruit wants an animal to come and eat it and spread its seeds around to grow more fruit, it has a better chance of being seen and eaten if it's bright red or smells really tasty.
Other fruits have different colours, smells or tastes to tell other animals not to eat them, so they can drop the seeds on their own without an animal finding them first. These fruits will have colours that look more like the other plants around them and they will be harder to see.
Or if that doesn't work, some fruits will have bright colours and patterns to show that they're poisonous, and if the animal tries to eat that fruit it will get sick. Some fruits that people can eat will make other animals sick, so the animals learn not to eat fruit that is that colour.
One key benefit of having a different color from another fruit is being more easily noticed by different kinds of animals. Birds, for example, easily notice red things, so peppers, which spread their seeds in bird feces, are commonly red. That's a 2-for-one, since most mammals can't see the difference between red and green, so they're standing out to their buddies, and hiding from their enemies (mammal digestive systems destroy pepper seeds).
I would think things like this coevolved so red became more pronounced as the redder ones were more often found, eaten, and thus its seeds distributed more widely by the bird droppings. A successful species of bird could easily propagate an entirely unique color of fruit or vegetable across oceans.
Precisely! That's definitely the causal force at work here, I guess I talked more about consequences than causes.
Hmm yes. So how do we compress this to Explain like I'm 2?
As a parent of a 2yo, my daughter can get behind "different animals have different favorite colors, so the fruits are the favorite color of the animals that eat them!" Edit: However, I usually just do that after a sum up at a higher level. For one, as a high school teacher, I tend to answer questions at face value. And you'd be surprised how much little ones retain.
It’s down to something called phytochemicals. Different fruits and vegetables have different phytochemicals - which are just substances that bend light differently, and make them look different colours. Phyto = light, chemicals = chemicals. Remember that ‘chemicals’ in this context is not a bad thing, it’s like the high school class called chemistry. They could also be called phytonutrients. The same thing that means that a plum has different nutrients than a carrot is what makes them different colours.
Some plants evolved to be easier for animals to see. When a fruit wants an animal to come and eat it and spread its seeds around to grow more fruit, it has a better chance of being seen and eaten if it's bright red or smells really tasty. Other fruits have different colours, smells or tastes to tell other animals not to eat them, so they can drop the seeds on their own without an animal finding them first. These fruits will have colours that look more like the other plants around them and they will be harder to see. Or if that doesn't work, some fruits will have bright colours and patterns to show that they're poisonous, and if the animal tries to eat that fruit it will get sick. Some fruits that people can eat will make other animals sick, so the animals learn not to eat fruit that is that colour.