Nikolai Vavilov’s Crop Mimicry

Some weeds have evolved to mimic the crops they grow among, making them harder for farmers to detect and remove. When farmers repeatedly pull out the obvious weeds, they unintentionally select for plants that look more like the crop, allowing those look-alikes to survive and reproduce. Over generations this process can make the weed increasingly resemble the cultivated plant. The phenomenon is known as Vavilovian mimicry, named after Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, who first described it.

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