A Matter of Contrast: Yellow Flower Colour Constrains Style Length in Crocus species
Autor: | Sabine Konzmann, Jessica Bossems, Doerte Harpke, Klaus Lunau |
---|---|
Rok vydání: | 2016 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Pollination Stamen lcsh:Medicine Plant Science medicine.disease_cause 01 natural sciences Anthers Genus Contrast (vision) lcsh:Science Flower Anatomy Crocus media_common Multidisciplinary biology Pigmentation Plant Anatomy food and beverages Phylogenetic Analysis Bees Insects Pistils Tepal Pollen Research Article Arthropoda media_common.quotation_subject Stamens Flowers Research and Analysis Methods 010603 evolutionary biology Botany medicine Animals Molecular Biology Techniques Molecular Biology Style Molecular Biology Assays and Analysis Techniques lcsh:R fungi Organisms Biology and Life Sciences biology.organism_classification Invertebrates Hymenoptera Stigma lcsh:Q Colour contrast 010606 plant biology & botany |
Zdroj: | PLoS ONE PLoS ONE, Vol 11, Iss 4, p e0154728 (2016) |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
Popis: | Most flowers display distinct colour patterns comprising two different areas. The peripheral large-area component of floral colour patterns attracts flower visitors from some distance and the central small-area component guides flower visitors towards landing sites. Whereas the peripheral colour is largely variable among species, the central colour, produced mostly by anthers and pollen or pollen mimicking floral guides, is predominantly yellow and UV-absorbing. This holds also for yellow flowers that regularly display a UV bull's eye pattern. Here we show that yellow-flowering Crocus species are a noticeable exception, since yellow-flowering Crocus species-being entirely UV-absorbing-exhibit low colour contrast between yellow reproductive organs and yellow tepals. The elongated yellow or orange-yellow style of Crocus flowers is a stamen-mimicking structure promoting cross-pollination by facilitating flower visitors' contact with the apical stigma before the flower visitors are touching the anthers. Since Crocus species possess either yellow, violet or white tepals, the colour contrast between the stamen-mimicking style and the tepals varies among species. In this study comprising 106 Crocus species, it was tested whether the style length of Crocus flowers is dependent on the corolla colour. The results show that members of the genus Crocus with yellow tepals have evolved independently up to twelve times in the genus Crocus and that yellow-flowering Crocus species possess shorter styles as compared to violet- and white-flowering ones. The manipulation of flower visitors by anther-mimicking elongated styles in Crocus flowers is discussed. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
Externí odkaz: |