A frugivore is an animal that feeds primarily or less commonly exclusively on fruit. This method of feeding can be more efficient than consuming the stem, roots, or other vegetative portions of a plant, due to higher concentrations of sugars, vitamins or proteins that many plants put into fruit. Phyla Subregnum Parazoa Porifera Subregnum Eumetazoa Placozoa Orthonectida Rhombozoa Radiata (unranked) Ctenophora Cnidaria Bilateria (unranked) Acoelomorpha Myxozoa Superphylum Deuterostomia Chordata Hemichordata Echinodermata Chaetognatha Xenoturbellida Superphylum Ecdysozoa Kinorhyncha Loricifera Priapulida Nematoda Nematomorpha Onychophora Tardigrada Arthropoda Superphylum Platyzoa Platyhelminthes Gastrotricha Rotifera Acanthocephala Gnathostomulida Micrognathozoa Cycliophora Superphylum Lophotrochozoa Sipuncula Nemertea Phoronida Ectoprocta Bryozoa... Fruit stall in Barcelona, Spain. ...

Plant and frugivore interactions

By definition fruit is a means by which a plant reproduces, and is a very important energy investment for the plant. This energy investment may be understood as the stored nutrients which the plant seedling will use to grow before it has an established leaf and root system to grow with. As the reproductive means for the plant, the plant species may have evolved means to either prevent animals from consuming their fruits, or conversely the fruit may have evolved to entice frugivores to the plant. Fruit stall in Barcelona, Spain. ... For other uses, see Plant (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Reproduction (disambiguation) Reproduction is the biological process by which new individual organisms are produced. ... The leaves of a Beech tree A leaf with laminar structure and pinnate venation In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. ... Primary and secondary roots in a cotton plant In vascular plants, the root is that organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil (compare with stem). ...

Enticement of frugivores

Over periods of time evolutionary interactions between a plant species and animal species may change both the animal and the plant to work with each other. This works because animals that eat all of their preferred fruits in a destructive manner may have no plants in following years to eat from. Animals who find and eat fruit in such a manner that both species profit will likely find more of the plants later on. This positive interaction may involve the following methods; This article is about evolution in biology. ...

• The animal eats the whole fruit, and later defecates the seeds in another place. The parent plant does not have to compete with the young seedlings, and the animal and its young will have a greater number of fruit bearing plants to eat from. Some plant species such as buckthorn have fruit with a natural laxative, so birds which eat the berries quickly empty their bowels as they fly away or at a nearby perch.

• The animal eats the fruit, but only the soft or sweet parts, spitting out the core with its seeds or hard pits. This is especially effective if the animal takes the fruit away to a safe and different location to eat, or to store for later use. Fruits like apples have a tough casing around their seeds, which takes more time to eat, than perhaps reaching for another apple. Mangos have very sweet and soft fruit when ripe, but before the seed is ready, the flesh of the fruit is bitter and hard. This prevents the fruit from being harvested before the seed is fully developed.

Some plant and animal interactions have evolved to the point where the plant seeds may not germinate unless passed through the acidic digestive system of their attendant animal species. In other cases, the animal has evolved with specialized physical attributes, such as beaks or teeth or nutritional needs so that without the plant they will starve, even surrounded by a forest or field filled with other plants and fruits. This specialization is one reason the extinction of a single species can be much more harmful than immediately understood. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Species See text The Buckthorns Rhamnus are a genus (or two genera, if Frangula is treated as distinct) of about 100 species of shrubs or small trees from 1-10 m tall (rarely to 15 m), in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae. ... A laxative is a preparation used for encouraging defecation, or the expulsion of feces. ... This article is about the tree and its fruit. ... Species About 35 species, including: Mangifera altissima Mangifera applanata Mangifera caesia Mangifera camptosperma Mangifera casturi Mangifera decandra Mangifera foetida Mangifera gedebe Mangifera griffithii Mangifera indica Mangifera kemanga Mangifera laurina Mangifera longipes Mangifera macrocarpa Mangifera mekongensis Mangifera odorata Mangifera pajang Mangifera pentandra Mangifera persiciformis Mangifera quadrifida Mangifera siamensis Mangifera similis Mangifera... Sunflower seedlings, just three days after germination Germination is the process where growth emerges from a resting stage. ... The Dodo, shown here in illustration, is an often-cited[1] example of extinction. ...

Plants that deter frugivores

As mentioned before, plants may invest significant energy into their fruit, to ensure the best chances for future generations. If an animal makes a habit of choosing this fruit as their main food source, only those plants with random mutations which the animal avoids will be able to reproduce in great numbers. In this fashion, secondary characteristics evolve to protect the plant from consumption. These fall into two main classes, chemical and physical. In biology, mutations are changes to the genetic material (either DNA or RNA). ...

Chemical deterrents may include:

• Poisonous or bad tasting juices
• Sedatives or nervous system affecting chemicals

The alkaloid chemical family is often seen in plants as a secondary metabolic chemical defense means. Cocaine is found in the coca plant, Erythroxylon coca, as an example. Diagram of Ephedrine An alkaloid, strictly speaking, is a naturally-occurring amine produced by a plant,[1] but amines produced by animals and fungi are also called alkaloids. ... Secondary metabolites are those chemical compounds in organisms that are not directly involved in the normal growth, development or reproduction of organisms. ... Cocaine (or crack in its impure freebase form) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. ... Binomial name Erythroxylum coca Lam. ...

Physical deterrents are perhaps more common, and may include:

• Thick skins or shell-like exteriors, particularly made of cellulose, or some other non-nutritive tissue
• Spikes, burrs, or other means to prevent the fruit from easily being chewed
• Gummy or adhesive sap, which keeps the animal from swallowing
• A lack of nutritive concentrations, such as sugars. This may keep the fruit from being preferred by frugivores, but it also lessens the helpful boost a fully developed plant can gift a seed with. It is evolutionarily logical, however, if all the sweet seeds get eaten, that the bitter or bland ones prosper.

Just as plants who work with their attendant frugivores may affect change on the consumer and themselves over time, the deterrent plants can also get into an evolutionary arms race with animals. If the rind gets thicker, so might the stronger jawed animal prosper over their lighter jawed cousins. Chemicals which are meant to poison a consumer may be eaten by an animal and give the animal in turn protection from being eaten, by means of concentrating the poisons it otherwise could not make in its body. An evolutionary arms race is an evolutionary struggle between a predator species and its prey (including parasitism) that is said to resemble an arms race. ... In botany, a rind is the thick outer skin of various structures such as fruit. ...

Finding specialized consumers to otherwise invulnerable harmful invasive species is one of the main techniques in biocontrol. If a species were brought in to an ecological problem situation with the tendency to just eat everything, it would be of no use as a control mechanism. If a plant has a species that consumes nearly or completely exclusively on it, this species may be a good candidate for further research as a possible means of biocontrol. Biological control of pests and diseases Overview A key belief of the organic gardener is that diversity furthers health. ...

Some examples of frugivores

Many birds eat both fruits, such as wild berries, and insects (examples include the American Robin or the Cedar Waxwing) or seeds (e.g. Pesquet's Parrot). Mammals may eat both fruits and animal prey, or live nearly exclusively on fruit or fruit juices, such as many Old World bats, known as the megabats. A number of the primates, for example the Gray-bellied Night Monkey, the Ring-tailed Lemur, and the White-headed Capuchin are frugivores. Aves redirects here. ... Binomial name Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 The American Robin (Turdus migratorius) is a migratory songbird of the thrush family. ... Binomial name Bombycilla cedrorum (Vieillot, 1808) The Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum, is a member of the family Bombycillidae or waxwing family of passerine birds. ... Subclasses Allotheria* Order Multituberculata (extinct) Order Volaticotheria (extinct) Order Palaeoryctoides (extinct) Order Triconodonta (extinct) Prototheria Order Monotremata Theria Infraclass Marsupialia Infraclass Eutheria The mammals are the class of vertebrate animals characterized by the production of milk in females for the nourishment of young, from mammary glands present on most species... See also the band, Fruit Bats. ... Families 15, See classification A primate (L. prima, first) is any member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all the species commonly related to the lemurs, monkeys, and apes, with the latter category including humans. ... Binomial name Aotus lemurinus I. Geoffroy, 1843 The Gray-bellied Night Monkey (Aotus lemurinus), also called the Lemurine Owl Monkey, is a small New World monkey of the family Aotidae. ... Binomial name Lemur catta Linnaeus, 1758 The Ring-tailed Lemur (Lemur catta) is a large prosimian, a lemur belonging to the family Lemuridae. ... Binomial name Cebus capucinus (Linnaeus, 1758) The White-headed Capuchin (Cebus capucinus), also known as the White-faced Capuchin or White-throated Capuchin, is a small New World monkey of the family Cebidae, subfamily Cebinae. ...

Homo sapiens sapiens (modern human). Linneaus, who introduced binomial nomenclature - naming plants and animals according to their physical structure - wrote: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food." See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm .

People who consciously adopt a strictly frugivorous diet call themselves fructarians or fruitarians. A fruit stall in Barcelona, Spain. ...