Abstract
BackgroundFlower colour is of great importance in various fields relating to floral biology and pollinator behaviour. However, subjective human judgements of flower colour may be inaccurate and are irrelevant to the ecology and vision of the flower's pollinators. For precise, detailed information about the colours of flowers, a full reflectance spectrum for the flower of interest should be used rather than relying on such human assessments.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe Floral Reflectance Database (FReD) has been developed to make an extensive collection of such data available to researchers. It is freely available at http://www.reflectance.co.uk. The database allows users to download spectral reflectance data for flower species collected from all over the world. These could, for example, be used in modelling interactions between pollinator vision and plant signals, or analyses of flower colours in various habitats. The database contains functions for calculating flower colour loci according to widely-used models of bee colour space, reflectance graphs of the spectra and an option to search for flowers with similar colours in bee colour space.Conclusions/SignificanceThe Floral Reflectance Database is a valuable new tool for researchers interested in the colours of flowers and their association with pollinator colour vision, containing raw spectral reflectance data for a large number of flower species.
Highlights
Flower colour and pigmentation are of interest to researchers in areas of both developmental biology and pollination ecology [1,2]
We have developed the Floral Reflectance Database (FReD) to provide free, searchable access to reflectance spectra of a large number of flowers, making available extensive information about flower colour that is not inherently human-biased and which can be used when considering the interactions between floral appearance and the visual systems of pollinators [19,20]
We expect the Floral Reflectance Database to be a valuable tool to researchers wishing to make between-habitat or global comparisons of floral colour; application of spectral reflectance data in studies of plant communities has already been demonstrated in multiple studies
Summary
Flower colour and pigmentation are of interest to researchers in areas of both developmental biology and pollination ecology [1,2]. Conclusions/Significance: The Floral Reflectance Database is a valuable new tool for researchers interested in the colours of flowers and their association with pollinator colour vision, containing raw spectral reflectance data for a large number of flower species.
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