New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts
Correlations between growth form, habitat, and fruit colour
in the New Zealand flora, with reference to frugivory by lizards
JANICE M. LORD
JANE MARSHALL
Botany Department
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand
Abstract In New Zealand, frugivory by lizards has been linked
to white or pale to sky-blue fruit colours, and divaricate growth forms.
Frugivory by lizards might also be expected to be associated with small fruit
size, and exposed habitats where dispersal to a moist microsite is crucial to
seedling survival. This study tests for correlations between fruit colour and
other plant attributes in the New Zealand fleshy-fruited flora consistent with
these predictions. Among New Zealand fleshy-fruited species, we found that
white and blue fruit colours were significantly associated with shrub and
divaricate growth forms, small fruit size, open habitats, and montane to alpine
altitudinal distributions. Within shrubs and subshrubs, white and blue fruit
colours were associated with small fruit size, and with open habitats if
Coprosma species were excluded. These results provide some support for
the hypothesis that for shrubby species in open habitats, frugivory by lizards
may have played a part in the evolution of small pale fruits.
Keywords fruit colour; fruit size; frugivory; growth form;
lizard; New Zealand
B00029
Received 9 August 2000; accepted 21 August 2001
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2001, Vol. 39: 567-576
0028-825X/01/3904-0567 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2001
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (868K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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