Aposematic Coloration in Thorny, Spiny and Prickly Plants

Abstract

The anecdotal status of studying and discussing plant aposematism that was revealed to me in the years 1996–2000 did not match what I found in the field. This was a typical scientific Deja vu. It happened to me in my Ph.D. thesis about the regulation of ray formation in the secondary plant body (e.g., Lev-Yadun and Aloni 1995), it happened again when I struggled to convince that Arabidopsis thaliana can and should be an excellent model for wood and fiber formation (e.g., Lev-Yadun 1994, 1997), and when we argued for the origin of agriculture in the Near East about 10,600 years ago in a short, geographycally limited single concious event (e.g., Lev-Yadun et al. 2000). In all these cases the studied subjects were either considered by many as already resolved, considered to reflect a totally different solution, or in the case of Arabidopsis not to have the relevant tissues. I repeatedly identified an opportunity in such situations and following my previous experience, adopted pursuing plant aposematism as a personal crusade.