While the symbiotic relationship is interesting, the title of the article offers NOTHING in the way of evidence that this plant EVOLVED this perch in the first place other than an intelligent human being imagining what their gut felt feelings are on the subject. Most of the papers or articles like this offer zero in the way of evidence that it is evolutinary in the first place. The mere act of bolded statment making seems to be all that is necessary. One has to wonder whether the plant actually had the ability to think and reason itself and then will it's own genetic information to rewrite itself to obtain this strategy. Creationism and IDism have the same exact problems when it comes to storytelling. Nobody can say for sure just exactly how such a mechanism developed. Nobody was way back when , when the imagined event happened. Here's another prime example of story invention. "Flowers 'wave' at passing insects" Flowers "wave" at insects to get their attention, scientists have discovered. Now in the storyline, notice the vague assumption being propagated by the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. So how do they actually know this is a fact ? Take a look what one individual said: So he imgained this ? I'm not trying to belittle meditative thinking here, but both sides are guilty of promoting imagination, assumptions, assertions and opinions as fact when clearly they are not. There are other flower designs in nature which are better at attracting pollinators than showy displays or motion flapping strategies. Take for example California Coffeeberry -(Rhamnus californica). I actually planted this as an attractive ornamental to my landscape as a means of not just practicing community planting with interspecies mycorrhizal connections, but I also love the attractive folliage with the multicoloured fruiting schemes which happens at different time periods just as in real coffee tree plants. Take a look here at the image below. Now as a side observation, I noticed every spring that every type/kind of winged creature in the insect world was attracted to this plant's flows whether they were flies, mosquitos, bees or wasps, even many beetles. And it wasn't because of showy flower colour or movement strategies. Take a look at the rather boring inconspicuous flowers cluster of Rhamnus californica What I did notice was that the flower colour was dull green and clustered. What seemed to attract this tremendous great variety of winged insect creatures was the large amount of sticky substance which covered the flowers. I couldn't smell anything, but I'm sure there must have also been some sort of pheromonal fragrance which only they could detect. The bottomline is no one knows for sure just how such came into existance without injecting a large amount of faith based statement making into the paper or article and this is equal for both sides of the arguement. Many papers can deal with descriptions of strategies without such assertion inserting and the science is still just as interesting. BTW, I would encourage anyone who is interested in attracting more preditory insects into your yard to investigate whether California Coffeeberry will work in your northern climates. It's well worth the effort. My favourite is a miniature variety called 'Eve Case' which is only about 2' tall and maybe 4'-5' or even 6' wide. The normal varieties grow much bigger as in nature's chaparral habitat.
Right... criticizing science based on a news reporter's story doesn't really fly on these forums. It's the practical equivalent of forming an opinion on a relative to a celebrity based on a biographical film based on a ghostwritten book about that celebrity. Dismissing science while simultaneously equating it with pseudoscience is a quick path to discovering that these forums aren't for you. If you want to criticize the original peer-reviewed articles, feel free: Specialized Bird Perch Aids Cross Pollination The natural history of pollination and mating in bird-pollinated Babiana (Iridaceae)
No one is criticizing science, just the methods of reporting on a story. I'd be equally critical to read a creationist relate how some god put that perch where it was so that the bird could pollinate the flower. I don't see how anyone could reach into the mind of a creator to scientifically explain just how they think their god actually did it. But as I pointed out, it cuts both ways, if indeed science is about "Naturalistic ONLY Explanations" rules, minus any type of metaphysical story insertions. Yes I've already read these. But nothing in those papers proves the origins one way or another other than the usual assertions and assumptions taken as fact. As the papers admit, they still don't know anything about the evolutioary origins. Also as I stated, the Creationist&ID sides have identical issues. Of course I do understand that Evolution is officially mandated as fact and therefore evidence isn't necessarily required in such papers, but it should be. My personal feeling is that if science is supposed to be natural step by step physical explanations, then lets allow that. In most cases origins are totally unnecessary if things are kept neutral and uncontroversial. And yes I do understand this ruffles the feathers of all sides of these go nowhere debates. Sadly, science today has been misused and abused and our planet's failing health is certainly proof of that. The GMO Franken-organism creations are presently causing genetic pollution in our Earth's environment and everyone should be appalled at that no matter what you believe.