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Updated: Apr 8, 2026

Herbivore-induced Blueberry Volatiles and Intra-plant Signaling
Published on: December 18, 2011
It's Not Easy Being Blue: Are There Olfactory and Visual Trade-Offs in Plant Signalling?
Kim Valenta1, Kevin A Brown2, Amanda D Melin3
1Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Abstract:
Understanding the signals used by plants to attract seed disperses is a pervasive quest in evolutionary and sensory biology. Fruit size, colour, and odour variation have long been discussed in the controversial context of dispersal syndromes targeting olfactory-oriented versus visually-oriented foragers. Trade-offs in signal investment could impose important physiological constraints on plants, yet have been largely ignored. Here, we measure the reflectance and volatile organic compounds of a community of Malagasy plants and our results indicate that extant plant signals may represent a trade-off between olfactory and chromatic signals. Blue pigments are the most visually-effective--blue is a colour that is visually salient to all known seed dispersing animals within the study system. Additionally, plants with blue-reflecting fruits are less odiferous than plants that reflect primarily in other regions of the colour spectrum.
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