Journal
NATURE
Volume 550, Issue 7677, Pages 469-+Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/nature24285
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Funding
- Leverhulme Trust [F/09741/G]
- BBSRC (DTG studentship)
- David Phillips fellowship [BB/K014617/1, 76933]
- European Research Council [ERC-2014-STG H2020 639088]
- Herchel Smith fund
- EU Marie Curie actions (NanoPetals)
- EPSRC [EP/G037221/1]
- Winton Fund for the Physics of Sustainability
- Cambridge Trust CHESS
- Adolphe Merkle Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation (National Center of Competence in Research Bio-Inspired Materials) (U.S.)
- EU [722842]
- BBSRC [BB/P001157/1, BB/K014617/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/K014617/1, BB/P001157/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [1360817] Funding Source: researchfish
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Diverse forms of nanoscale architecture generate structural colour and perform signalling functions within and between species. Structural colour is the result of the interference of light from approximately regular periodic structures; some structural disorder is, however, inevitable in biological organisms. Is this disorder functional and subject to evolutionary selection, or is it simply an unavoidable outcome of biological developmental processes? Here we show that disordered nanostructures enable flowers to produce visual signals that are salient to bees. These disordered nanostructures (identified in most major lineages of angiosperms) have distinct anatomies but convergent optical properties; they all produce angle-dependent scattered light, predominantly at short wavelengths (ultraviolet and blue). We manufactured artificial flowers with nanoscale structures that possessed tailored levels of disorder in order to investigate how foraging bumblebees respond to this optical effect. We conclude that floral nanostructures have evolved, on multiple independent occasions, an effective degree of relative spatial disorder that generates a photonic signature that is highly salient to insect pollinators.
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