Limits to the salience of ultraviolet: lessons from colour vision in bees and birds

Ultraviolet is an important component of the photic environment. It is used by a wide variety of animals and plants in mutualistic communication, especially in insect and flower inter-relationships. Ultraviolet reflections and sensitivity are also becoming well considered in the relationships between vertebrates and their environment. The relative importance of ultraviolet vis à vis other primary colours in trichromatic or tetrachromatic colour spaces is discussed, and it is concluded that ultraviolet is, in most cases, no more important that blue, green or red reflections. Some animals may use specific wavebands of light for specific reactions, such as ultraviolet in escape or in the detection of polarised light, and other wavebands in stimulating feeding, oviposition or mating. When colour vision and, thus, the input from more than a single spectral receptor type are concerned, we point out that even basic predictions of signal conspicuousness require knowledge of the neuronal wiring used to evaluate the signals from all receptor types, including the ultraviolet. Evolutionary analyses suggest that, at least in arthropods, ultraviolet sensitivity is phylogenetically ancient and undergoes comparatively little evolutionary fine-tuning. Increasing amounts of ultraviolet in the photic environment, as caused by the decline of ozone in the atmosphere, are not likely to affect colour vision. However, a case for which ultraviolet is possibly unique is in the colour constancy of bees. Theoretical models predict that bees will perform poorly at identifying pure ultraviolet signals under conditions of changing illumination, which may explain the near absence of pure ultraviolet-reflecting flowers in nature.