ArticleJournal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology2017
Why background colour matters to bees and flowers.
Article in Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analytic evidence for quantitative honesty in aposematic signals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Pooled it
- The Most Effective Pollinators Predict Intraspecific Floral Color Diversity Across an Edaphic Matrix.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Colour preference and foraging constancy in the Asian giant honeybee Apis dorsata.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- A mosaic of colors: The influence of biotic and abiotic factors shaping flower color diversity across a tropical mountain ecosystem.American journal of botany · 2026Article
- Heat drastically alters floral color and pigment composition without affecting flower conspicuousness.American journal of botany · 2026Article
- Bees, flowers and UV.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2025Review
- Nuances of floral mimicry in Queen of Sheba orchids.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Green flowers need yellow to get noticed in a green world.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- The road less taken: Dihydroflavonol 4-reductase inactivation and delphinidin anthocyanin loss underpins a natural intraspecific flower colour variation.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Why Petals? Naïve, but Not Experienced Bees, Preferentially Visit Flowers with Larger Visual Signals.Insects · 2023Article
- Structural anther mimics improve reproductive success through dishonest signaling that enhances both attraction and the morphological fit of pollinators with flowers.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Reduced visitation to buzz-pollinatedEcology and evolution · 2022Article
- Geographic Mosaics of Fly Pollinators With Divergent Color Preferences Drive Landscape-Scale Structuring of Flower Color in Daisy Communities.Frontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Flower Color Evolution and the Evidence of Pollinator-Mediated Selection.Frontiers in plant science · 2021Review
- Sex-specific floral attraction traits in a sequentially hermaphroditic species.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Changing How Biologists View Flowers-Color as a Perception Not a Trait.Frontiers in plant science · 2020Article
- Flowering Phenology and the Influence of Seasonality in Flower Conspicuousness for Bees.Frontiers in plant science · 2020Article
- Fragmentary Blue: Resolving the Rarity Paradox in Flower Colors.Frontiers in plant science · 2020Review
- Australian native flower colours: Does nectar reward drive bee pollinator flower preferences?PloS one · 2020Article
- Flower colour diversity seen through the eyes of pollinators. A commentary on: 'Floral colour structure in two Australian herbaceous communities: it depends on who is looking'.Annals of botany · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Flowers are often viewed by bee pollinators against a variety of different backgrounds. On the Australian continent, backgrounds are very diverse and include surface examples of all major geological stages of the Earth's history, which have been present during the entire evolutionary period of Angiosperms. Flower signals in Australia are also representative of typical worldwide evolutionary spectral adaptations that enable successful pollination. We measured the spectral properties of 581 natural surfaces, including rocks, sand, green leaves, and dry plant materials, sampled from tropical Cairns through to the southern tip of mainland Australia. We modelled in a hexagon colour space, how interactions between background spectra and flower-like colour stimuli affect reliable discrimination and detection in bee pollinators. We calculated the extent to which a given locus would be conflated with the loci of a different flower-colour stimulus using empirically determined colour discrimination regions for bee vision. Our results reveal that whilst colour signals are robust in homogeneous background viewing conditions, there could be significant pressure on plant flowers to evolve saliently-different colours to overcome background spectral noise. We thus show that perceptual noise has a large influence on how colour information can be used in natural conditions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.