Percepção da coloração floral de Tocoyena formosa (Cham. & Schltdl.) K. Schum. por seus possíveis polinizadores ; Perception of the floral colors of Tocoyena formosa (Cham. & Schltdl.) K. Schum. by the possible pollinators

Angiosperms use visual cues in their flowers to attract and pass information to their pollinators. Flower color is an important attribute used by long-distance pollinators, which can indicate floral senescence or resource quantity. The main pollinators are insects, and they have different types of photoreceptors and visual resources according to their respective ecology. Tocoyena formosa (Rubiaceae), popularly known as genipapo-bravo, has white and yellow flowers. There are few works in the literature that seek to understand how visual signs influence floral visitation, taking into account the visual models of potential visitors. In this way, the present work can analyze the color profile of the wild genipap flowers and evaluate how the flowers change colors in the view of their possible pollinators, having been carried out a visual modeling for the bees (Apis mellifera). The work was carried out on the campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and consisted of collecting and measuring the color of flowers using a spectrophotometer. The results obtained did not show differentiation, in the view of the bees, for the different colors of T. formosa flowers. This result may be related to several factors, one of which is that the real pollinators of T. formosa are moths, belonging to the Order Lepidoptera, which has a great diversity of photoreceptors. We emphasize the importance of future studies for a better understanding of the visual system of these animals, making it possible to perform visual modeling in the view of their real pollinators. ; CNPQ ; As angiospermas utilizam pistas visuais em suas flores para atrair e passar informação para seus polinizadores. A coloração das flores é um atributo importante utilizado por polinizadores a longa distância, o que pode indicar a senescência floral ou quantidade de recursos. Os principais polinizadores são os insetos, e possuem diferentes tipos de fotorreceptores e capacidades visuais de acordo com sua respectiva ecologia. A Tocoyena formosa (Rubiaceae), ...