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Pollinators show flower colour preferences but flowers with similar colours do not attract similar pollinators
Reverté Saiz, Sara (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Retana Alumbreros, Javier (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)
Gómez Reyes, José María (Universidad de Granada)
Bosch, Jordi, 1961- (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)

Date: 2017
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 six taxonomic groups: bees, ants, wasps, coleopterans, dipterans and lepidopterans. - Key results: we found consistent associations between pollinator groups and certain colours. These associations matched innate preferences experimentally established for several pollinators and predictions of the pollination syndrome theory. However, flowers with similar colours did not attract similar pollinator assemblages. - Conclusions: the explanation for this paradoxical result is that most flower species are pollination generalists. We conclude that although pollinator colour preferences seem to condition plant-pollinator interactions, the selective force behind these preferences has not been strong enough to mediate the appearance and maintenance of tight colour-based plant-pollinator associations.
Grants: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2012-34736
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2009-12646
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CSD2008-0040
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2005-00491
Rights: Tots els drets reservats.
Language: Anglès
Document: Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject: Colour preferences ; Floral colour ; Floral reflectance spectra ; Generalization ; Floral traits ; Phylogenetic signal ; Plant-pollinator interactions ; Pollinator assemblage ; Pollination syndromes
Published in: Annals of botany, Vol. 118, issue 2 (Aug 2016) , p. 249-257, ISSN 1095-8290

DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcw103
PMID: 27325897


Post-print
32 p, 461.9 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles

 Record created 2017-09-06, last modified 2022-09-03



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