Poisonous plants, palatable plants

[Loren Booda]

How does whether plants are poisonous or nonpoisonous affect their dispersal of seeds?

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Well, think of some of the ways in which plants go about dispersing their seeds. Which avenues are available to nonpoisonous plants that are not available to poisonous plants? Similarly, how might being poisonous help some of these methods of dispersal?

 

[Loren Booda]

Well, think of some of the ways in which plants go about dispersing their seeds. Which avenues are available to nonpoisonous plants that are not available to poisonous plants? Similarly, how might being poisonous help some of these methods of dispersal?

You basically restated my original question.

 

[Loren Booda]

Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the dispersal mechanism and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water and by animals. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus.

Thanks for a general description of dispersal. How would poison affect its modes?

 

[Loren Booda]

For instance, how would one berry evolve to be poisonous to one browsing species, and edible to another?