Fruit Scent: Biochemistry, Ecological
Function, and Evolution
17
Omer Nevo and Manfred Ayasse
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
2 Fruit Scent: Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Patterns of Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
2.1 Chemistry and Biochemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
2.2 Patterns of Scent Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
3 Fruit Scent and Seed Disperser Attraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
3.1 Fruits Scent as a Cue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
3.2 Fruit Scent: A Cue or an Evolved Signal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
3.3 Multimodality: Color and Scent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4 Other Factors Affecting Fruit Scent Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4.1 Fruit Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4.2 Developmental and Phylogenetic Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
5 Conclusions and Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Abstract
Fruit scent plays an important role in human preference and has thus been studied
primarily in the context of agricultural science. In wild species, fruit scent has
long been speculated to play a role in mediating the mutualistic interaction
between plants and fruit-eating animals that disperse their seeds. Yet until
recently, empirical studies addressing this hypothesis have been all but absent.
Studies in the past decade emphasized the ecological role of fruit scent as an
animal attractant, as well as its evolution as a ripeness signal. But data are still
limited and many questions remain open. This chapter summarizes recent developments in the study of the chemical ecology and evolution of wild fruit scent.
It explores the chemistry and biochemistry of fruit scent, its use by various
O. Nevo (*) · M. Ayasse
Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
e-mail: omer.nevo@evolutionary-ecology.de; manfred.ayasse@uni-ulm.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J.-M. Mérillon, K. G. Ramawat (eds.), Co-Evolution of Secondary Metabolites,
Reference Series in Phytochemistry, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96397-6_33
403
Function, and Evolution
17
Omer Nevo and Manfred Ayasse
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
2 Fruit Scent: Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Patterns of Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
2.1 Chemistry and Biochemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
2.2 Patterns of Scent Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
3 Fruit Scent and Seed Disperser Attraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
3.1 Fruits Scent as a Cue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
3.2 Fruit Scent: A Cue or an Evolved Signal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
3.3 Multimodality: Color and Scent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4 Other Factors Affecting Fruit Scent Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4.1 Fruit Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4.2 Developmental and Phylogenetic Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
5 Conclusions and Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Abstract
Fruit scent plays an important role in human preference and has thus been studied
primarily in the context of agricultural science. In wild species, fruit scent has
long been speculated to play a role in mediating the mutualistic interaction
between plants and fruit-eating animals that disperse their seeds. Yet until
recently, empirical studies addressing this hypothesis have been all but absent.
Studies in the past decade emphasized the ecological role of fruit scent as an
animal attractant, as well as its evolution as a ripeness signal. But data are still
limited and many questions remain open. This chapter summarizes recent developments in the study of the chemical ecology and evolution of wild fruit scent.
It explores the chemistry and biochemistry of fruit scent, its use by various
O. Nevo (*) · M. Ayasse
Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
e-mail: omer.nevo@evolutionary-ecology.de; manfred.ayasse@uni-ulm.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J.-M. Mérillon, K. G. Ramawat (eds.), Co-Evolution of Secondary Metabolites,
Reference Series in Phytochemistry, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96397-6_33
403