Evolutionary anachronism

Maladaptation of such fruiting plants will intensify as ongoing climate change shifts the physical and ecological conditions within their current geographic range.

[2] The concept was formulated by Costa Rican-based American ecologist Daniel H. Janzen[3] and carried broadly into scientific awareness when he and his coauthor, paleoecologist Paul S. Martin, published "Neotropical Anachronisms: The Fruits the Gomphotheres Ate" in the journal Science.

[4] Among the largest of extinct fruit-eating mammals in the American tropics were the gomphotheres, related to modern elephants, which inspired the title chosen by Janzen and Martin for their 1982 paper.

These traits were molded by evolutionary interactions with the Pleistocene megafauna (and earlier animals) but have not yet effectively responded to its absence.The Janzen and Martin paper was preceded by a 1977 publication by American ecologist Stanley Temple.

Temple attributed the decline of the Mauritius endemic tree tambalacoque to human overharvesting to extinction of a large, flightless bird that had coevolved on the same tropical island: the dodo.

Such musings add magic to a walk and may help to liberate us from tunnel vision, the hubris of the present, the misleading notion that nature is self-evident.

The kind of fruits that birds are attracted to eat are usually small, with only a thin protective skin, and the colors are red or dark shades of blue or purple.

[10]The phenomenon was referenced (though not by name) in the 1259 issue "Bee Orchid" of the online comic strip xkcd by Randall Munroe, published on September 2, 2013.