From the University of Pittsburgh:
When, in 1833, Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger published his key observation that warm-blooded animals tend to be more heavily pigmented or darker the closer they live to the equator, he probably didn’t realize the degree to which the climate would change in the next 200 years or so.
This week, University of Pittsburgh researchers Matthew Koski and Tia-Lynn Ashman proved that the same phenomenon described by Gloger, a German zoologist, exists among flowers. Their paper, “Floral pigmentation patterns provide an example of Gloger’s rule in plants,” was published Jan. 8, 2015 in the first issue of Nature’s new journal Nature Plants. The finding expands understanding of biological responses to global climate change, Koski and Ashman say.
One of the reasons investigators have not pursued proof of Gloger’s rule in flowers is that pollinators, such as bees, don’t see what we see when they look at a flower. They see in the ultraviolet as well as visible ranges. What appears bright yellow to a person can appear dark or patterned to a bee.
To read the full article, visit the University of Pittsburgh's website.