Gandía-Herrero Fernando, García-Carmona Francisco, Escribano Josefa
Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular A, Unidad Docente de Biología, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Murcia, 30100 Espinardo, Murcia, Spain.
Nature. 2005 Sep 15;437(7057):334. doi: 10.1038/437334a.
The way flowers appear to insects is crucial for pollination. Here we describe an internal light-filtering effect in the flowers of Mirabilis jalapa, in which the visible fluorescence emitted by one pigment, a yellow betaxanthin, is absorbed by another, a violet betacyanin, to create a contrasting fluorescent pattern on the flower's petals. This finding opens up new possibilities for pollinator perception as fluorescence has not previously been considered as a potential signal in flowers.
花朵呈现给昆虫的方式对授粉至关重要。在此，我们描述了紫茉莉花朵中的一种内部滤光效应，其中一种色素（黄色的甜菜黄素）发出的可见荧光被另一种色素（紫色的甜菜青素）吸收，从而在花瓣上形成对比鲜明的荧光图案。这一发现为传粉者感知开辟了新的可能性，因为荧光此前未被视为花朵中的一种潜在信号。
