Chinese flower has evolved to be less visible to gatherers | Environment

For thousands of years, the delicacy Fritillaria delavayi has grown slowly on the rocky slopes of China’s Hengduan Mountains, producing a bright green flower after its fifth year.

But the remarkable little plant has a deadly enemy: the people, who harvest the flower for traditional Chinese medicine.

As the commercial harvest has intensified, Fritillaria delavayi disappeared – evolving rapidly to produce gray and brown leaves and flowers that pickers cannot see so easily.

Scientists have found that the color of the plant’s leaves has become more camouflaged – matching the bottom rocks they grow on – in areas where there is more harvesting pressure from people.

“Like other camouflaged plants that we studied, we thought that the camouflage evolution of this fritillary was driven by herbivores, but we did not find such animals,” said Dr Yang Niu of the Kunming Institute of Botany, and co-author of the current biology study. “Then we realized that humans could be the reason.”

In the study by the Kunming Institute of Botany (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the University of Exeter, researchers measured how well plants from different populations matched their mountain environment and how well they were easy to collect, and interviewed local people to estimate the amount of harvest. took place at each location.

In a computer experiment, it was found that people took longer to discover the more camouflaged plants, suggesting that humans are driving the rapid evolution of this species to new forms of color because the better camouflaged plants have a greater chance of survival.

Fritillaria delavayi is a perennial herb that grows leaves at a young age before producing a single flower after its fifth year in June. The bulb of the fritillary species has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2,000 years, but high prices in recent years have resulted in increased harvests.

“It is remarkable how humans can have such a direct and dramatic impact on the coloring of wild organisms, not only on their survival but on their evolution itself,” said Professor Martin Stevens, of the Center for ecology and conservation of the University of Exeter. “Many plants seem to use camouflage to hide from herbivores who may eat them – but here we see camouflage evolving in response to human collectors.

“It is possible that humans have led to the evolution of defensive strategies in other plant species, but surprisingly little research has examined this.