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Limits to the salience of ultraviolet: lessons from colour vision in bees and birds

Peter G. Kevan¹, Lars Chittka² and Adrian G. Dyer^3,*

¹ Department of Environmental Biology and Department of Botany, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1,
² Biozentrum, Zoologie II, Am Hubland, Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany and
³ Faculty of Science, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia

View larger version (18K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Spectral sensitivity curves of pigment nomograms (according to Stavenga et al., 1993), calculated for the values of maximum sensitivity of the honeybee’s ultraviolet, blue and green receptors (after Peitsch et al., 1992). Curves are normalized to a maximum value of 1.0. Similar curves are shared by many pterygote insects and possibly even the Cambrian ancestor of the mandibulates (Crustacea and Insecta).

View larger version (33K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Phylogeny of insect, chelicerate and crustacean opsins based upon a maximum parsimony analysis of opsin amino acid sequences. Only representative species from available orders or sub-orders are shown. Brackets indicate measured (*) or inferred () spectral properties of the visual pigments (in bold type) in each clade. Inferred spectral properties are based upon in situ hybridization or immunohistochemistry in combination with electrophysiological studies. (The figure is reprinted from Chittka and Briscoe, 2001, with permission from Springer Verlag. The data are taken from several studies cited in the paper.)

View larger version (15K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Hexagon colour space showing contour plots of predicted colour shift, considering von Kries colour constancy and a change in the spectral quality of illumination from a correlated colour temperature of 4800 to 10000K. Numbers on the contours represent the distance a colour in that region of the hexagon would shift for the change in illumination colour. The distance from the centre of the hexagon to each corner is 1 unit. Colour classes are related to the three photoreceptor peaks (Ultraviolet, Blue and Green) of the honeybee. The contours are calculated from 99 theoretical colours described by Dyer (Dyer, 1998) and are plotted in a hexagon colour space after Chittka (Chittka, 1992).

View larger version (18K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Hexagon colour space showing the excitations (E) of photoreceptors and the different colour classes for the honeybee. The relative number of flowers occurring in each hue category is plotted in the centre of the hexagon. Hue, in colour space, corresponds to angle, as measured from the centre. Therefore we counted the number of floral colour loci in narrow hue sectors each 10° wide, with the highest frequency normalised to 1.0 (for details, see Chittka et al., 1994). Blue-green flowers are most common, pure ultraviolet flowers are rare.

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