Insects Attraction to Flowers Due to Ultraviolet Light and Patterns

Abstract
Our motivation for this project was our interest in flowers and bugs. Lately, the flowers
have been blooming and the insects have slowly started to come out, which means its the
beginning of spring. We both really love looking outside and seeing the insects on the flowers,
but weve never know why they are so attracted to them. This curiosity driven our experiment to
test if insects are attracted to flowers because of the smell, color, or Ultraviolet patterns. We
were so fascinated that we wanted to know the reasoning behind why insects were attracted to
certain flowers. We created the question to test,What roles does color (red, violet, and
Ultraviolet) play in attracting insects to flowers? We then researched why some insects were
attracted to flowers and found that the flowers with stronger Ultraviolet patterns draw the insects
deep into the flower, this was shown true in our results. Overall, this experiment answered our
curiosity of why insects are attracted to certain flower and if it has to do with color, smell, and
Ultraviolet patterns.
Introduction
The purpose of this experiment is to see if insects are attracted to the flowers because of
the scent, color, or UV patterns. During the spring time you see the flowers blooming and more
and more insects coming out. They fly from flower to flower to pollinate, but have you ever
wondered why they are attracted to certain flowers. In the article What colors do animals see it
states, The range of vision for the bee and butterfly extends into the ultraviolet. The petals of
the flowers they pollinate have special ultraviolet patterns to guide the insects deep into the
flower. The more the Ultraviolet pattern in the flower the more the insects are attracted to the
flower. In the article Insects Color Vision it stated, Among compound-eye insects, though, the
majority are bichromatic. This means they have just two types of color pigment receptors, and, as a
result, they are not so good at distinguishing pure colors from mixtures of colors.Their color
spectrum is limited. So like humans insects eye vision is limited, but just in a different spectrum.
Many insects can see a higher frequency of light that is invisible to humans, red is the lowest
frequency of color we see but to insects red is invisible. Adult insects have compound eyes which
are equipped to distinguish colors. This is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1

Question and Hypothesis:

What roles does color (red, violet, and Ultraviolet) play in attracting insects to flowers?
If the color of the flowers affects the attraction number of insects landing on a flower then the
flower with more Ultraviolet patterns will attract more insects because Insects have the ability to
see Ultraviolet light and their vision of colors is shifted compared to ours.

Methods & Materials

To test our hypothesis we started off by choosing flowers by their color and scent. We
choose the flowers by their color and scent because we wanted to make sure we included all of
the variables and that we werent just thinking about the attraction to ultraviolet light, that it could
also be there smell and color. We chose eight different types of flowers, light blue (Figure 2),
light purple (Figure 3), dark purple(Figure 4), orange and white(Figure 5), yellow (Figure 6), blue
(Figure 7), red/yellow tulips (Figure 8), and red tulips (Figure 9). Once we had chosen the
flowers we sat outside and observed each flower for at least 15 minutes and counted how many
bugs landed on each flower, we repeated this for four days to get more data to help our
experiment. When the count was over we went back to the flowers that we had counted the
bugs on and put the ultraviolet light over them to analyze the ultraviolet patterns. We took the
data we collected and put it into a spreadsheet and graphs to analyze and see if our hypothesis
was correct.
In order to accomplish our experiment we needed to use and find different materials. We
had to find different colored and smelling flowers. We found flowers that had a strong smell,
some with a little smell, some with no smell to see if smell was apart of the attraction to flowers.
We then used a timer to keep track of how long we were outside observing how many insects
landed on the flowers. When we were done finding the count of the bugs we then went back and
took pictures of the flowers with a camera, so we would have a before image and an after image
of when we used the Ultraviolet light (it would be helpful to have Ultraviolet light)
Results
We observed from this experiment that the small light blue and dark purple flowers attracted
more insects. Through the four days of observing the different flowers we found that 10 insects
landed on the small light blue and dark purple flowers. Most of the insects were different types
of flies. While as for the different types of tulips and Dark blue bell flowers had zero amounts of
insects. The other four types of flowers were in between zero and ten. Once we had done the
bug count we went back out and took the Ultraviolet light over the flowers. We found there was
more Ultraviolet patterns on the light blue flower, dark purple flower, small light purple flower,
small dark blue bell flowers, and tulips. The most Ultraviolet pattern was shown on the small
light blue and the small dark purple.

These images show the flower without the UV light and with the light during the day and then at
night.
Light Blue Flower

Figure 2

Purple Flower

Figure 3
Dark Purple

Figure 4
Orange/ White Flower

Figure 5

Yellow Flower

Figure 6
Blue

Figure 7
Red Tulip

Figure 8

Yellow/Red Tulip

Figure 9
Discussion
The purpose of this experiment was to better understand why insects are attracted to flowers
and if Ultraviolet is a key impact on how many insects land on the flowers. Our hypothesis
stated that the flower with more ultraviolet patterns increases how many insects are attracted to
that flower. This proved to be right in our results. We found that the flower with more Ultraviolet
patterns had more insects that would land on them and that the insects were more attracted to
the flowers with more Ultraviolet light. The flowers that had more insects, such as the small light
blue and the small dark purple had more Ultraviolet light. While has the other flowers didnt have
a lot of Ultraviolet patterns and so not as many insects landed on them. During this experiment
we also had to keep in mind that color and smell has a huge impact on weather or not insects
are attracted to flowers. With the Orange and White flowers they had a very strong smell and
attracted a lot of flowers, but had no Ultraviolet pattern. This shows a flaw in our experiment that
it may not just be the ultraviolet light that attracts them to certain flowers. We do feel though that
our results support our hypothesis and help making our hypothesis true.
Bibliography
A Moment of Science Staff. "Insect Color Vision | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media." A
Moment of Science RSS. Indian Republic Media, 7 July 2005. Web. 05 May 2016.
Biggs, Tarynn. "Home | Causes of Color." Home | Causes of Color. U.S Department of Education,
n.d. Web. 05 May 2016.
Include any relevant sources that you referenced in the summary