Ben Balzer wrote:

> The fruit is the plants gift to the animal for depositing the seeds
> elsewhere in a pile of dung.  This arrangement ids profitable for
> both parties and this is therefore a good business arrangement.
> Therefore, I propose that fruit eating animals and fruit bearing
> plants have a symbiotic relationship.  Plants reserve the right to
> fill the seeds inside the fruit with toxins to discourage animals
> from eating them.

But there's a contradiction here: either the animal is eating the
seeds and passing them intact through its GI tract to germinate in its
dung, or it is not eating them because of the toxins therein.
Perhaps, in certain cases, the seeds are designed to not be
digestible, but to be eaten nevertheless in order to propagate the
plant species via animal droppings?

--
Deanna