The ultraviolet colour component enhances the attractiveness of red flowers of a bee-pollinated plant |
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Authors: | Zhe Chen Chang-Qiu Liu Hang Sun and Yang Niu |
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Institution: | 1.CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Kunming 650201, Yunnan, China, ;2.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China, ;3.Center for Gardens and
Horticultural Studies, Guangxi Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guilin 541006, Guangxi, China;Corresponding author. E-mail: niuyang@mail.kib.ac.cn (Y.N.); sunhang@mail.kib.ac.cn (H.S.) |
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Abstract: | Aims
Bee-pollinated flowers are rarely red, presumably because bees (which lack red receptors) have difficulty detecting red targets. Although the response of bees to red colour has been investigated in lab experiments, most stimuli have been pure red, while the subtle diversity of red as perceived by humans (human-red) has received very limited attention. Here we test the hypothesis that ultraviolet (UV) reflected from human-red flowers enhances their attractiveness to bees, through increased chromatic contrast. |
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Keywords: | bee pollination colour vision floral colour evolution pollination syndrome red flower UV reflection |
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