Ultraviolet as a component of flower reflections, and the colour perception of hymenoptera

Chittka, Lars; Shmida, Avi; Troje, Nikolaus F.; Menzel, Randolf

doi:10.1016/0042-6989(94)90151-1

Cited by 397 publications

(439 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The colour contrast effect was weaker when only UV was considered, suggesting that UV does not have a disproportionate contribution to preference: bees will choose yellow, and violet as well as UV. This behavioural finding about bee's preference for several distinct colours is consistent with a study that showed non-UV flower colours are more common than UV flowers (Chittka et al, 1994), and another study that highlights the absence of pure UV flowers (Menzel and Shmida, 1993). Indeed, there is general agreement that the salience of floral UV patterns is comparable to the salience of other colours visible to bees (Kevan et al, 2001).…”

Section: Colour Perceptionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Orbán

Plowright

2014

Insect. Soc.

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Much of the literature on foraging behaviour in bees focuses on what they learn after they have had rewarded experience with flowers. This review focuses on how honeybees and bumblebees are drawn to candidate food sources in the first place: the foundation on which learning is built. Prior to rewarded foraging experience, flower-naïve bumblebees and honeybees rely heavily on visual cues to discover their first flower. This review lists methodological issues that surround the study of flowernaïve behaviour and describes technological advances. The role of distinct visual properties of flowers in attracting bees is considered: colour, floral size, patterning and social cues. The research reviewed is multi-disciplinary and takes the perspectives of both the bees and the plants they visit. Several avenues for future research are proposed.

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Section: Colour Perceptionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Orbán

Plowright

2014

Insect. Soc.

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“…(ii) Spectral measurement analyses Spectral data of flower reflectances were analysed using a previously established methodology, which has already shown that honeybee colour discrimination closely fits angiosperm colours that have evolved in the Northern Hemisphere [25,28]. For colours to be best discriminated by a visual system, the reflectance curves should rapidly change in the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum where spectrally different photoreceptors overlap [24,25,56].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Palynological records from southern England also reveal evidence for the appearance of angiosperms around this time [27]. Studies comparing the distribution of flower colours suggest that visual ecological constraints from hymenopteran trichromats have been a major influence on angiosperm evolution throughout the Middle East and Europe [25,28,29]. Importantly, this evolution of flower colours has not been a coevolution as hymenopteran vision is phylogenetically ancient and predates the evolution of angiosperms [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel evolution of angiosperm colour signals: common evolutionary pressures linked to hymenopteran vision

et al. 2012

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Flowering plants in Australia have been geographically isolated for more than 34 million years. In the Northern Hemisphere, previous work has revealed a close fit between the optimal discrimination capabilities of hymenopteran pollinators and the flower colours that have most frequently evolved. We collected spectral data from 111 Australian native flowers and tested signal appearance considering the colour discrimination capabilities of potentially important pollinators. The highest frequency of flower reflectance curves is consistent with data reported for the Northern Hemisphere. The subsequent mapping of Australian flower reflectances into a bee colour space reveals a very similar distribution of flower colour evolution to the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, flowering plants in Australia are likely to have independently evolved spectral signals that maximize colour discrimination by hymenoptera. Moreover, we found that the degree of variability in flower coloration for particular angiosperm species matched the range of reflectance colours that can only be discriminated by bees that have experienced differential conditioning. This observation suggests a requirement for plasticity in the nervous systems of pollinators to allow generalization of flowers of the same species while overcoming the possible presence of non-rewarding flower mimics.

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“…The three panels show L-, M-and S-cone coordinates from each of 280 reflectance spectra (Taylor & Kerr 1941;Chittka et al 1994;Vrhel et al 1994;Hiltunen 1996;Marshall 2000) rendered under two illuminants: zenith skylight on the ordinate and direct sunlight on the abscissa. In each plot, the red cross represents the photon-catch from a surface of perfect, uniform spectral reflectance and is equivalent to the photon-catch obtained from direct sampling of the illuminant.…”

Section: S-cone M-cone L-conementioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory, computational and cognitive components of human colour constancy

Smithson

2005

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

182

139

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When the illumination on a scene changes, so do the visual signals elicited by that scene. In spite of these changes, the objects within a scene tend to remain constant in their apparent colour. We start this review by discussing the psychophysical procedures that have been used to quantify colour constancy. The transformation imposed on the visual signals by a change in illumination dictates what the visual system must 'undo' to achieve constancy. The problem is mathematically underdetermined, and can be solved only by exploiting regularities of the visual world. The last decade has seen a substantial increase in our knowledge of such regularities as technical advances have made it possible to make empirical measurements of large numbers of environmental scenes and illuminants. This review provides a taxonomy of models of human colour constancy based first on the assumptions they make about how the inverse transformation might be simplified, and second, on how the parameters of the inverse transformation might be set by elements of a complex scene. Candidate algorithms for human colour constancy are represented graphically and pictorially, and the availability and utility of an accurate estimate of the illuminant is discussed. Throughout this review, we consider both the information that is, in principle, available and empirical assessments of what information the visual system actually uses. In the final section we discuss where in our visual systems these computations might be implemented.

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Ultraviolet as a component of flower reflections, and the colour perception of hymenoptera

Cited by 397 publications

References 22 publications

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Parallel evolution of angiosperm colour signals: common evolutionary pressures linked to hymenopteran vision

Sensory, computational and cognitive components of human colour constancy

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