What’s So Hot About Chili Peppers?

We love chili peppers, the hotter, the better! The ingredient that gives spicy peppers their heat is capsaicin, but what is the purpose of capsaicin in nature? To find the answer, ecologist Joshua Tewksbury traveled to Bolivia, home of many kinds of peppers.

“Capsaicin demonstrates the incredible elegance of evolution,” says Tewksbury. The specialized chemical deters microbes—humans harness this ability when they use chilies to preserve food—but capsaicin doesn’t deter birds from eating chili fruits and spreading seeds. “Once in a while, the complex, often conflicting demands that natural selection places on complex traits results in a truly elegant solution. This is one of those times.”

Link -via Boing Boing

(image credit: Tomás Carlo)