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| Photo by MARIUSZ PRUSACZYK via 123RF |
A research team from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Adolphe Merkele Institute in Switzerland found that several common flower species have nanoscale ridges on the surface of their petals that meddle with light when viewed from specific angles. Researchers called the subtle effect the “blue halo,” generated by the nanostructures when scattering light particles in the blue to ultraviolet color spectrum.
They were able to manufacture artificial surfaces that replicated the blue halo and tested the effect on pollinators, specifically foraging bumblebees, and found that the insects can see the subtle effect and use it to locate flowers more efficiently.
“We had always assumed that the disorder we saw in our petal surfaces was just an accidental by-product of life. It came as a real surprise to discover that the disorder itself is what generates the important optical signal that allows bees to find the flowers more effectively,” said professor Beverley Glover, senior author of the study and plant scientist and director of Botanic Garden at Cambridge University.
Scientists analyzed the nanostructures further and discovered that the striations in height, width, and spacing varied in different flower species, yet produced the same blue halo effect. They describe the phenomenon as a disorder because even on a single petal these light-manipulating nanostructures were discovered to be irregular.
Analysis on some of the earliest diverging plants from the angiosperm lineage have been found with no halo-producing petal ridges but several examples of halo-producing petals among two major flower groups, monocots and eudicots, were found.
“Our findings suggest the petal ridges that produce ‘blue halos’ evolved many times across different flower lineage, converging on this optical signal for pollinators,” said Glover.
The findings opened new opportunities for the development of surfaces that are highly visible pollinators, and the exploration on how living plants control the levels of the disorder on petal surfaces, according to the researchers.
