As such, Zammit and Westoby (1988) also considered that the increased metabolic cost of producing thick and woody follicles for the protection of nutritious and limited seed in many
Proteaceous taxa may account for such a selective pressure, particularly since they believe that the alternative strategy may very likely have resulted in an increased degree of predation within the seed bank.
Putative
proteaceous elements of the Lomatites-type reinterpreted as new Berberis of the European Tertiary.
Since
proteaceous species produce proteoid roots that mobilise nutrients such as Mn in the root-zone by organic acid secretion (Shane and Lambers 2005), this may explain the efficient acquisition of Mn by G.
The story from South Africa, was that in the fynbos, where
proteaceous plants abound, bugs are 'thin on the ground.' This was anecdotally held for Australia as well, but in this trip, we were confirming what we started to see in 1996; namely, that the Proteaceae were actually attractive to land bugs.
The type of mutualism that has evolved between flying foxes and their Myrtaceous and
Proteaceous mutualists involves the partners as 'free-living' mutualists with 'sustained, intimate interactions between individuals of the respective species'.