Floral colour diversity in plant communities, bee colour space and a null model
Floral colour diversity in plant communities, bee colour space and a null model
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.1999.0836
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发表时间：
1999-08-22
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Chittka, L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gumbert, A;Kunze, J;Chittka, L
进化生物学家长期以来一直假设，我们看到的花颜色的多样性在一定程度上是一种策略，以促进传粉者的记忆，传粉者的恒定性，从而促进植物之间定向而有效的花粉转移。然而，这一假设从未被用生物上真实的零模型来检验，也没有用传粉者看待它们的方式来评估颜色。我们在这里的目的是填补这些空白。在一整年的时间里，我们在德国柏林附近的五个生态不同的地点采样了花卉物种的组成。对所有168个物种的蜜蜂主观颜色进行了量化。一个颜色视觉模型被用来预测同域和同时盛开的花对蜜蜂的颜色有多相似。然后，我们比较了真实栖息地和随机植物群落中的花朵颜色差异。当我们考虑普通工厂时，我们没有发现明显的偏离偶然性的情况。然而，当我们研究稀有植物时，我们发现五种植物群落中的两种存在显著差异。在一个地点，相似颜色的物种被发现比预期的更频繁，而在另外两个地点，花的颜色与随机分布难以区分。这些结果符合理论上的考虑，即稀有植物比普通植物面临更大的选择压力来确保授粉。我们的研究说明了将不同的生物传统，如群落生态学和蜜蜂视觉的神经行为学联系起来的力量。
Evolutionary biologists have long hypothesized that the diversity of flower colours we see is in part a strategy to promote memorization by pollinators, pollinator constancy and therefore, a directed and efficient pollen transfer between plants. However, this hypothesis has never been tested against a biologically realistic null model, nor were colours assessed in the way pollinators see them. Our intent here is to fill these gaps. Throughout one year, we sampled floral species compositions at five ecologically distinct sites near Berlin, Germany. Bee-subjective colours were quantified for all 168 species. A model of colour vision was used to predict how similar the colours of sympatric and simultaneously blooming flowers were for bees. We then compared flower colour differences in the real habitats with those of random plant communities. We did not find pronounced deviations from chance when we considered common plants. When we examined rare plants, however, we found significant divergence in two of the five plant communities. At one site, similarly coloured species were found to be more frequent than expected, and at the other two locations, flower colours were indistinguishable from a random distribution. These results fit theoretical considerations that rare plants are under stronger selective pressure to secure pollination than common plants. Our study illustrates the power of linking such distinct biological traditions as community ecology and the neuroethology of bee vision.