Higher iridescent-to-pigment optical effect in flowers facilitates learning, memory and generalization in foraging bumblebees.

ABSTRACT: Iridescence-change of colour with changes in the angle of view or of illumination-is widespread in the living world, but its functions remain poorly understood. The presence of iridescence has been suggested in flowers where diffraction gratings generate iridescent colours. Such colours have been suggested to serve plant-pollinator communication. Here we tested whether a higher iridescence relative to corolla pigmentation would facilitate discrimination, learning and retention of iridescent visual targets. We conditioned bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to discriminate iridescent from non-iridescent artificial flowers and we varied iridescence detectability by varying target iridescent relative to pigment optical effect. We show that bees rewarded on targets with higher iridescent rel

SUBMITTER: de Premorel G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5666091 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature