Why are avocado seeds so big?

 

Image: “Avozilla” the largest avocado variety.

So the birds can't take them away . No, it's not that. This is the real reason:

“Why do avocados have such large seeds ?... wild avocados used to thrive only in subtropical jungles, so each young plant had to grow quite tall to compete with its neighbors for sunlight (and photosynthesize). ). Until then, they relied only on the nutrients contained in the seed , so the bigger the better.” [ 1 ]

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“In the past, in the days of megafauna, the avocado must have been something like a giant seed with a bit of pulp – unattractive to small mammals like humans. However, thanks to artificial selection, avocados became a more substantial fruit, much to the enjoyment of farmers.”

The avocado is a fruit from a different era. This plant reached its apogee during the Cenozoic era [ 2 ] when megafauna such as mammoths, horses, gonophoterids [ 3 ] and giant sloths [ 4 ] roamed the lands of North America.

The fruit attracted megafauna (which by definition were animals over 50 kilograms) which could consume it whole, travel long distances and defecate, allowing the seeds to spread. Which is actually the goal of all fruits. The survival of the species through the dispersal of seeds.

But large mammals became extinct in the Western Hemisphere 13,000 years ago. At that time, North America lost about 68% of its diverse megafauna and in South America, the loss was 80%. Connie Barlow, author of “The Ghost of Evolution: Meaningless Fruit, Lost Companions, and Other Ecological Anachronisms” [ 5 ] says:

"But even after this change in mammalian populations, the wild avocado would continue to have the same reproductive needs, making it an evolutionary anachronism."

"After 13,000 years, it's safe to say that giant mammals are no longer in charge of dispersing avocado seeds," explains Barlow. "Without the presence of megafauna such as giant sloths, the seeds would have rotted where the fruit fell and, if germinated, would compete with their parents for sunlight."

A smaller fruit, such as berries, could be consumed whole by small animals and increase the chances that their seeds would be watered in areas with greater availability of light and other resources necessary for their development.

Some believe that after the disappearance of the megafauna, the avocado fruits could have been devoured by animals such as jaguars, which, due to various now unknown circumstances, were able to consume the whole fruit thanks to the fact that their stomachs were designed to hold large portions of meat, which could have allowed the seeds to be consumed intact, however, there is no evidence to support this theory.

It is also speculated that rodents such as squirrels and mice may have contributed by collecting and burying the seeds.