Pollinators show flower colour preferences but flowers with similar colours do not attract similar pollinators.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Colour is one of the main floral traits used by pollinators to locate flowers. Although pollinators show innate colour preferences, the view that the colour of a flower may be considered an important predictor of its main pollinators is highly controversial because flower choice is highly context-dependent, and initial innate preferences may be overridden by subsequent associative learning. Our objective is to establish whether there is a relationship between flower colour and pollinator composition in natural communities.

Methods

We measured the flower reflectance spectrum and pollinator composition in four plant communities (85 plant species represented by 109 populations, and 32 305 plant-pollinator interactions in total). Pollinators were divided into

SUBMITTER: Reverte S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4970366 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature