Fruit dispersal mutualism can be read as gift exchange without denying evolution

Evidence

I’m a plant scientist and I want to be clear, but I am also a poet and the world speaks to me in metaphor. When I speak of the gift of berries, I do not mean that Fragaria virginiana has been up all night making a present just for me, strategizing to find exactly what I’d like on a summer morning. So far as we know, that does not happen, but as a scientist I am well aware of how little we do know. The plant has in fact been up all night assembling little packets of sugar and seeds and fragrance and color, because when it does so its evolutionary fitness is increased. When it is successful in enticing an animal such as me to disperse its fruit, its genes for making yumminess are passed on to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than those of the plant whose berries were inferior. The berries made by the plant shape the behaviors of the dispersers and have adaptive consequences. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 109

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how the world as gift is a compatible frame layered onto, not contradicting, evolutionary mechanism — both scientist and poet speak truly.
• XREF: The braiding of mechanism and meaning is exactly the method of ‘listening/observation-as-method’ shared thread, and parallels alongside soundscape listening to more-than-human voices. — connects to: Reciprocal altruism is really mutualism, not altruism — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 211; Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 431; Trust is produced through gifts rather than required as a precondition for association — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2436 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Trust is produced through gifts rather than required as a precondition for association #expands (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2436
• Reciprocal altruism is really mutualism, not altruism #corroborates (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 211
• Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving #exemplifies (0.72) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 431