DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3jc
title: Behavioral thermoregulation of flowers via petal movement

description: Widely documented in animals, behavioral thermoregulation mitigates
 negative impacts of climate change. Plants experience especially strong
 thermal variability but evidence for plant behavioral thermoregulation is
 limited. Along a montane elevation gradient, Argentina anserina flowers
 warm more in alpine populations than at lower elevation. We linked floral
 temperature with phenotypes to identify warming mechanisms, and documented
 petal movement and pollinator visitation using time-lapse cameras. High
 elevation flowers were more cupped, focused light deeper within flowers,
 and were more responsive to air temperature than low; cupping when cold
 and flattening when warm. At high elevation, a 20º increase in petal angle
 resulted in a 0.46ºC increase in warming. Warming increased pollinator
 visitation, especially under cooler high elevation temperatures. A
 plasticity study revealed constitutive elevational differences in petal
 cupping and stronger temperature-induced floral plasticity in high
 elevation populations. Thus, plant populations have evolved different
 behavioral responses to temperature driving differences in
 thermoregulatory capacity.
description: Data were collected in natural populations on floral phenotypes,
 floral and environmental temperature, petal movement and pollinator
 visitation and temperature. Temperature data was collected using
 thermocouple probes. Petal movement and pollinator data was collected
 using time-lapse cameras. Data on floral phenotypes
 were also collected on greenhouse propogated plants in growth
 chambers.
description: # **Behavioral thermoregulation of flowers via petal movement**
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3jc](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3jc) In this study we measured floral traits linked with floral temperature in populations spanning an elevation gradient in Southwestern Colorado. We linked traits with air temperature at flower-level and with the magnitude of mid-day floral warming. We used time-lapse cameras to measure petal movement timing, floral responses to temperature, and pollinator visitation to flowers. We then collected floral phenotypic data on plants in a cool and warm growth chamber treatment to measure floral trait plasticity in low and high elevation populations, ## Description of the data and file structure List of Excel Files. All files have a 'data' tab with the data analyzed, and a 'metadata' tab with descriptions of column headers. 2021_traits_temp_field.xlsx: Floral traits measured at mid-day in natural populations of Argentina anserina and associated mid-day internal flower temperature, external flower air temperature and the temperature differential between internal and external temperature probes. petal_open_close_data.xlsx: The timing of floral opening and closing of flowers measured in the field using time-lapse cameras. UVpetal_traits_and IR_Reflectance_field2021.xlsx: Floral color patterning traits measured using UV photography, and petal reflectance data measured using reflectance spectrometry. Data collected from field-collected flowers. TLC_vid_visit_angle_temp_data_21_22.xlsx: Petal angle data measured on time-lapse camera videos associated with temperature data collected using thermocouples. population_average_traitsandtemp.xlsx: average floral phenotypic data and temperature data to measure population-level correlations between traits and floral warming. TLC_visitation_2021_2022.xlsx: pollinator visitation data measured from time-lapse cameras with associated temperature data measured using thermocouple probes. Temp_plasticity.xlsx: Floral phenotypes measured on plants in cold and warm temperature treatments in growth chambers used to measure phenotypic plasticity. In all data files, missing values are indicated by "NA". ## Code/Software flower.thermoreg.code_final.R contains all code used to analyze data from the above Excel files.