Have you ever wondered why spending time in nature feels so relaxing? Well, my muse project involved trying to understand the reason for this phenomenon.
Our nature spaces have a wonderful harmonization of colors that is pleasing to the eyes and enhances our well-being in a subtle yet engaging manner.
This landscape photo taken while walking along the causeway between the Upper and Lower Marsh at Minnekhada Park illustrates such color harmony.
This harmony results from the major colors in this scene being adjacent to one another on an artistic or photographic color wheel. The yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, and blue-violet colors have a calming effect on the viewer.
I then began to consider how else does color play a role in our natural landscape. For example, how do animals and plants rely on color for survival and growth.
It turns out that color serves as a critical form of communication among a wide range of plants and animals. This trait is called advertising coloration. Many animals and plants use bright colors as visual clues to ensure their survival and reproduction through three primary functions.
- Mate attraction: Color in the bird world is one of the more obvious characteristics that allows a male to stand out from other rivals who are trying to do the same thing – find the best mate. You can think of this as “Dress to Impress” for the male birds. Here, the iridescent breeding plumage of male Wood ducks helps them to attract a mate.
- Pollination and seed dispersal: Plants use bright colors and other visual cues as a form of advertising to attract preferred visitors. For example, vibrant and fleshy fruit attracts birds that ingest and disperse seeds.
Brightly colored petals attract bees and hummingbirds to nectar 
- Warning and deception: Some animals use bold colors to warn predators that they are poisonous, dangerous, or taste bad. This slow-moving Yellow-spotted millipede (almond-scented millipede or cyanide millipede) relies on dark coloration with contrasting yellow-tipped keels for protection against predators:
This warns of its ability to give off toxic hydrogen cyanide as a defense. Another example is the Red net-winged beetle that uses its bright red color to advertise its ability to release a bad smelling and foul-tasting chemical compound.