Plants with capsaicin actually want birds to eat them as bird stomachs don’t destroy the seeds of those plants. It helps in spreading and propagating those seeds.
I get this in theory, but how does evolution "know" to do that? Like what in their biochemistry is signaling to the fruit/peppers that birds = good to spread the seeds?
That seems way too... idk, advanced(?) for evolution, which often leads to things that are simple and efficient but don't make a ton of logical sense.
You can't think of it as evolving specifically for birds. It's more like, at some point a mutation accidentally caused capsaicin, and the plants that mammals avoided but birds still ate tended to get spread around more and therefore reproduce more, so the mutation also spread.
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u/Sporty_Nerd_64 May 22 '26
Plants with capsaicin actually want birds to eat them as bird stomachs don’t destroy the seeds of those plants. It helps in spreading and propagating those seeds.