Journal
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
Volume 9, Issue 66, Pages 34-42Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2011.0188
Keywords
seed; germination; predation; material properties; optimization
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [BCS-0851351, CMS-0800790]
- L.S.B. Leakey Foundation
- US Fish and Wildlife Service
- Wingate Foundation
- Rufford Small Grants Foundation
- Primate Conservation Inc.
- Conservation International Primate Action Fund
- IdeaWild
- Cambridge Philosophical Society
- Columbus Zoo
- Wildlife Conservation Society
- George Washington University
- Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project (OuTrop)
- University of Palangkaraya
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [1118385] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Here, we show how the mechanical properties of a thick-shelled tropical seed are adapted to permit them to germinate while preventing their predation. The seed has evolved a complex heterogeneous microstructure resulting in hardness, stiffness and fracture toughness values that place the structure at the intersection of these competing selective constraints. Analyses of different damage mechanisms inflicted by beetles, squirrels and orangutans illustrate that cellular shapes and orientations ensure damage resistance to predation forces imposed across a broad range of length scales. This resistance is shown to be around the upper limit that allows cracking the shell via internal turgor pressure (i.e. germination). Thus, the seed appears to strike an exquisitely delicate adaptive balance between multiple selection pressures.
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