Nectar mimicry: a new phenomenon

Nectar is the most common floral reward for flower-visiting flies, bees, bats and birds. Many flowers hide nectar in the floral tube and preclude sensing of nectar by flower-visitors from a distance. Even in those flowers that offer easily accessible nectar, the nectaries are mostly inconspicuous to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2020-04, Vol.10 (1), p.7039-7039, Article 7039
Main Authors: Lunau, Klaus, Ren, Zong-Xin, Fan, Xiao-Qing, Trunschke, Judith, Pyke, Graham H., Wang, Hong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/158
631/181
Animals
Bees - physiology
Birds - physiology
Color
Flowers
Flowers & plants
Humanities and Social Sciences
Insecta - physiology
Mimicry
Molecular Mimicry
multidisciplinary
Nectar
Photography
Plant nectar
Plant Nectar - chemistry
Pollination
Reinforcement
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Ultraviolet radiation
Wavelength
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Summary:Nectar is the most common floral reward for flower-visiting flies, bees, bats and birds. Many flowers hide nectar in the floral tube and preclude sensing of nectar by flower-visitors from a distance. Even in those flowers that offer easily accessible nectar, the nectaries are mostly inconspicuous to the human eye and the amount of nectar is sparse. It is widely accepted that many flowers display nectar guides in order to direct flower-visitors towards the nectar. Using false colour photography, covering ultraviolet, blue and green ranges of wavelength, revealed a yet unknown conspicuousness of nectar, nectaries and false nectaries for bees due to concordant reflection in the ultraviolet range of wavelength. Nectars, many nectaries and false nectaries have glossy surfaces and reflect all incident light including UV-light. In most cases, this is not particularly conspicuous to the human eye, but highly visible for UV-sensitive insects, due to the fact that the glossy areas are often positioned in UV-absorbing central flower parts and thus produce a strong UV-signal. The optical contrast produced by the glossiness of small smooth areas in close proximity to nectar holders represents a widespread yet overlooked floral cue that nectarivorous flower-visitors might use to locate the floral nectar.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-63997-3