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Flowers and the vision of bees

04.03.2016

Botanists from the University of Cambridge and Bristol (UK), led by Professor Beverley Glover (Beverley Glover) and Dr. Heather Whitney (Heather Whitney) found out that flowers "tune" the iridescence of their petals to the eyes of bees to make it easier for them to remember them. The results of their study, published in the journal Current Biology, retell a press release from the University of Cambridge.

Iridescence is called bright overflows of shades of all the colors of the rainbow that pass into each other, such as, for example, in soap bubbles or on the bottom side of a CD, with tracks. Flower petals also have this property, however, compared to many other natural objects, their iridescence is low. To find out what explains this, British scientists undertook their own research.

In the laboratory, they made three types of artificial flowers: high iridescence (like a soap bubble or a CD), medium iridescence (like ordinary plants in nature) and no iridescence at all. Within each species were multi-colored options. In a series of experiments, nectar was placed only in "flowers" of a certain color and a certain iridescence, and we watched how quickly the bees remember where exactly to fly for food.

It turned out that bees remember "flowers" with iridescence faster than those without iridescence. However, the high level of iridescence confuses them and they often confuse the differently colored super iridescent flowers. Their vision is no longer enough to distinguish too complex overflows of shades.

Thus, we can conclude that plants "adjust" the degree of iridescence of their flower petals to a level at which it serves as a reliable guide for bees, but at the same time does not confuse excessive complexity. If necessary, the petals could be more iridescent - plant physiology allows this - but this would be an unnecessary waste of resources that would not facilitate the "relationship" with the pollinating bees, but quite the contrary.

"There are many optical effects in nature that we don't fully understand. It has long been known that coloration is used by living beings both for camouflage and to attract sexual partners, but now it turns out that animals and plants have more to say to the world and to each other." , - summed up Professor Glover.

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