Flowering plants produce seeds so they can reproduce. They have a hard seed coat that allows them to float down streams and rivers. Seeds contained within fruits need to be dispersed far from the mother plant, so they may find favorable and less competitive conditions in which to germinate and grow. As humans became aware of the ability to modify crops through selective breeding, the evolution of new traits in plants greatly increased. Some seeds are carried by animals, some float on the wind, others float on water, some simply roll down hill due to gravity, and still others have ways to shoot out of their seed pods. With the help of several volunteers, researchers have been able to map how seeds are dispersed in vegetation by clothes and shoes worn by humans working on the fields and in nature. There are three main methods of seed dispersal: hitchhiking with animals and humans, drifting on ocean or fresh water, and being carried by the wind. However, plants have been evolving in response to human selective pressures since long before people began consciously altering them through breeding. Teōtīhuacān, named by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs, and loosely translated as "birthplace of the gods" is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in the Teotihuacan Valley of the Free and Sovereign State of Mexico, in present-day Mexico. The same evolutionary responses, Spengler argues, can be seen in farmers’ fields during the early steps towards domestication, with plants developing traits to better use humans as seed dispersers. Kids really enjoyed thinking about this one- mostly because they like to say the word ‘poop’! During a harvest, the specimens with the most brittle rachises lost their seeds, whereas the plants with tougher rachises benefited from having their seeds protected and saved for the following year. In a new study published in Trends in Plant Science, Dr. Robert Spengler examines these evolutionary responses and theorizes that all of the earliest traits to evolve in the wild relatives of modern domesticated crops are linked to human seed dispersal and the evolutionary need for a plant to spread its offspring. Seed dispersal has many consequences for the ecology and evolution of plants. Archaeobotanists studying early plant domestication agree that the evolution of tougher rachises in cereal crops was a result of humans using sickles to harvest grains. Nature has many different strategies for seed dispersal (Figure 2). Many local branches maintain a field by annual mowing. The seed is too hard to eat, so the dung beetle plants the seed, but doesn't benefit from it! Archaeologists conducting excavations at Chedworth Roman Villa in Gloucestershire, England, have discovered the first known Roman mosaic that dates from the 5th century AD. It follows that it is an evolutionary advantage to get their seeds away from the parent plant. Its most widespread and intense cases account for the planting of much of the land area on the planet, through agriculture. Hydrochory is dispersal using water, including oceans, rivers, streams, and rain. Humans effective agents of seed dispersal for plants. If the seeds fall in the water, they are carried away by the tide to grow somewhere else. The Evolution of Seed-Dispersal Traits in Crops. Humans may have been important agents of natural seed dispersal in the historical agricultural landscape, according to a new study from researchers at Stockholm University, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. Botanists divide seed dispersal strategies into several categories, based on the method of dispersal, as shown in the table below. 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