山药假浆果的巧妙伪装助其远播

eception and intrigue are not limited to people or even animals. Plants, too, have evolved ways to fool their pollinators, their enemies and even the organisms that disperse their seeds. Now scientists have uncovered trickery in a climbing vine that fooled even them. The black-bulb yam (Dioscorea melanophyma) makes fake berries that help the species spread to new locations, ecological biologist Gao Chen and colleagues report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Biologists as far back as Charles Darwin noted that there are certain seeds that appear to be encased in the same fleshy fruit as other species but really offer no food reward. …