Do plants change colur 2 adapt to thei enviroment?

Question

Do plants change colur 2 adapt to thei enviroment?

Answer 1

Plants adapt to winter with dormancy and this produces color changes in the leaves before they drop. Plants use pigments to protect from sunburn. Just like we tan they have red anthocyanins in tender new leaves to protect them until photosynthetic pigments are abundant enough to protect the new leaf. The pigments also protect the leaf in its last days on the tree before the leaf falls off.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/res...

Plants have different color flowers or fruit in different habitats or at different times. The different fruit and flower colors  signal to attract different species of fruit eaters or pollinators native to where the plant is growing. The more color the more contrast with foliage but it must be a color the eater or pollinator can see. Not all creatures see the same. Some flowering plants will change the color of their flowers to attract currently available pollinators. When birds migrate through  newly opening flowers have redder colors. Once the birds are gone the flowers opening are in colors insects see better.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht...

Fruit like apples contain pigments in their peel that also offer protection from UV damage. This is why so many fruit 'blush' on the side exposed to the sun.

Fruit come in white, green or colored forms. Green apples are glossy and reflect or look different from the matte leaves they grow against to attract mammals that do not see in the red range. Yellow fruit is also very attractive to most mammals. Birds see very well in the red spectrum so red fruit would attract them well. This is called fruit polymorphism.

http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/abstra...

Plant species that have a second flower color are referred to as having color morphs also. Sometimes these color morphs are very closely linked to pollinators. One wild plantain the heliconia species (H. bihai) grows a second flower color just to attract female hummingbirds. Usually the plants red/green color attracts male hummingbirds that have short straight bills. Females go to other plants that fit their longer curved bill better. On islands where the other plants are missing the Heliconia has adapted by growing a flower shape with no red  just to fit the female's bills. These plants only use hummingbirds to pollinate.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

http://biology.georgefox.edu/~dpowers/Po...

http://cloudbridge.org/heliconias.htm

Some plants have multicolored leaves like Amaranthus tricolor. When the soil is good and salt is not a problem the plant uses the green regions more the the red & yellow areas on the leaf  (~40% less). Plants growing in soil with high salt content rely on the colored regions as those areas suffer less impairment.

http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conten...

Answer 2

Surely ! Think about potatoes, for example. They change their color to green after being under the influence of sunlight.

Answer 3

Actually they dont

Answer 4

In the tropics, very often at high altitudes, tender new growths will be colored red to protect themselves from harsh ultraviolet rays. In the tropical lowlands, new growths are again often colored red and drooping to simulate disease and ward off leaf predators. This is an adaptation.