Meeting Abstract

73.3  Friday, Jan. 6  Color as a visual cue in the pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor: Is hue or brightness more important? WANG, D.L.*; PAPAJ, D.R.; University of Arizona; University of Arizona wangd88@gmail.com

Color is a key cue used by visually oriented animals. In plant-insect interactions, insects use color to locate flowers for nectar foraging and plants for host selection. However, the methodology of many color studies confounds three distinct properties of color: hue, brightness, and chroma. For example, individuals may prefer yellow over blue because of differences in brightness between the two colors and not necessarily because of differences in hue. In this study, we use LED technology to tease apart the roles of hue and brightness in innate floral color preference, color learning, and host selection by the pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor.