双语有声阅读：植物拟态

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

Mimicry² in Plants

 

Plant adaptations can be remarkably³ complex. Certain species of orchids⁴, for instance, imitate female bees, other plants look and smell like dead animals, and still others have the appearance of stones. These strange adaptations to life represent just a few of the sophisticated means by which plants enhance their chances of survival. Mimicry in plants or animals is a three part system. There is a model: the animal, plant or substrate being initiated⁵. There is a mimic¹: the organism that imitates the model. And there is a signal receiver or dupe: the animal that cannot effectively distinguish between the model and the mimic. Mimetic traits may include morphological structures, color patterns, behaviors or other attributes of the mimic that promote its resemblance to a model.That model may be either an unrelated species or an inanimate object, such as the background against which an organism spends most of its time. Mimicry is not an active strategy on the part of an individual plant; flowers do not deliberately⁶ trick or deceive animals into visiting them.Mimicry arises as the result of evolution through natural selection and the occurrence of random⁷ genetic⁸ mutations that lead over many generations to the appearance of favorable characteristics. If such traits help to camouflage⁹ a plant, for example, the plant is likely to have a survival advantage over other plants that are less well camouflaged¹⁰.The plant will leave more descendants, thereby¹¹ passing the advantage to the next generation. For natural selection to favor the evolution of mimicry, the mimicry must derive¹² a reproductive advantage from modeling itself after another organism or object: its fitness, measured as the number of offspring produced that survive into the next generation, must be increased as the result of deception¹³.

 

分享到：