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<b>Absorption of visible light by floral anthocyanins increases flower temperatures: implications for a warmer world</b>

Metadata Updated: April 21, 2025

With rising global temperatures, understanding the mechanisms that influence plant thermal energy balance are critical to forecasting plant and pollinator responses. Flower temperatures impact visitation by insect pollinators, and several temperature-sensitive processes central to plant reproduction. Anthocyanin pigments absorb strongly in visible and ultraviolet wavebands, but clear support for a warming effect of pigments on flowers has remained elusive. We used infrared imaging to measure petal temperatures of horticultural varieties of plants differing in floral anthocyanin content. Excised sets of flowers were mounted perpendicularly to the sun, and exposed to direct ambient sunlight filtered either through Aclar (UV-transparent) or Courtguard (UV-opaque) under low-wind (< 1 m s-1) conditions. Petal temperatures were measured after one minute, and treatment order alternated between replicates. Results showed that pigmented flowers were consistently significantly warmer than white conspecifics (2.9°C warmer on average for lightly-pigmented varieties, 5.3°C warmer for darkly-pigmented). Most species showed no significant difference in petal temperatures under UV inclusion versus exclusion, indicating most warming by anthocyanins can be attributed to absorption of visible light. UV-enhanced warming was observed in some species, which could be due to the presence of side groups that enhance UV-absorption by the anthocyanin molecules. However, these differences were slight (always <1°C), and usually white varieties exhibited differences as well, suggesting other flavonoids too may contribute to floral warming. Additional experiments focusing on dark pink and white varieties of Impatiens x hybrida corroborated previous reports that the most dramatic warming effects occur under high-light, low-wind conditions. In the context of climate change, warmer temperatures could potentially drive the replacement of darkly-colored flowers with more lightly-colored morphs (or species), especially if flower temperatures exceed thermal maxima for fertilization and seed development. This pressure may be especially strong in species with floral morphologies conducive to heat trapping or in low-wind environments (e.g., growing in dense stands or close to the ground). Changes in flower color could also potentially induce shifts in pollinator communities, which could have community-scale effects.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

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Dates

Metadata Created Date November 2, 2024
Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from USDA JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 2, 2024
Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025
Publisher Agricultural Research Service
Maintainer
Identifier 10.15482/USDA.ADC/27229290.v1
Data Last Modified 2024-10-17
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 005:18
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id c0f5d1c8-10e1-4070-910c-70513d094937
Harvest Source Id d3fafa34-0cb9-48f1-ab1d-5b5fdc783806
Harvest Source Title USDA JSON
License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Program Code 005:040
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash eb6128f2f9079a64f50815e6e7b71ef1b8f2ed8c5da35a4d92fb6c6b7692cad8
Source Schema Version 1.1
Temporal 2024-08-01/2024-08-01

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