Gloomy-Emphasis t1_j8qzuot wrote on February 16, 2023 at 9:20 AM

Here is what I don't get: Why does eating a fruit enhance the ability to search for fruit?

If you imagine a person starving then they need food. So currently they don't have this enhanced searching ability, so they fail and starve. And a different person finds a tree with fruit and now they can find another tree with fruit, BUT they already have one?!

So for me it makes more sense to have the starving person forget everything else and focus on searching and the non-starving person can rest.

What I'm trying to say is, how do the researchers know that this is a foraging adaption pathway?

Inblact t1_j8sg2wu wrote on February 16, 2023 at 5:05 PM

They science harder than we do (also evolution can result in unfavorable evolutions)

War_Hymn t1_j8tkk77 wrote on February 16, 2023 at 9:18 PM

I think it's a seasonal response telling you to fatten yourself before winter comes (or dry season if you're in the tropics). Most fruits mature around late summer/early autumn (or close to the end of the wet season in the tropics). So that's when you're going to be hit with a fructose rush, which tells your brain, "hey, tough times ahead, better go out and find food while you can!".