Compromises between quantity and quality common in animals: do the same holds for plants, flowers?
Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 14:00
in Biology & Nature
Most creatures face compromises when they reproduce the more energy they devote to having lots of babies, the less they can invest in each one. But do the same tradeoffs hold true for plants? Biologists have long assumed that plants with bigger, showier flowers can make fewer of them per plant. But the data don't always hold up, scientists say. A new study by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center may help explain why.