ArticlePloS one2017
Visual Adaptations for Mate Detection in the Male Carpenter Bee Xylocopa tenuiscapa.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Photoreceptor recordings reveal remarkable acuity in small solitary bees compared with larger species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Different Senses for Different Roles: Sexual Dimorphism in the Sensory System of a Scoliid Wasp.Insects · 2026Article
- Polarized iridescence of the tropical carpenter bee, Xylocopa latipes.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2023Article
- Pigmentary colouration of hairy carpenter bees, genus Xylocopa.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2023Article
- Spatial resolution and sensitivity of the eyes of the stingless bee, Tetragonula iridipennis.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2022Article
- Article
- Seeing the world through the eyes of a butterfly: visual ecology of the territorial males of Pararge aegeria (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae).Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2021Article
- A new, fluorescence-based method for visualizing the pseudopupil and assessing optical acuity in the dark compound eyes of honeybees and other insects.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Spatial Vision and Visually Guided Behavior in Apidae.Insects · 2019Review
- Foraging strategies and physiological adaptations in large carpenter bees.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2019Review
- Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sexual dimorphism in eye structure is attributed to sexual selection in animals that employ vision for locating mates. In many male insects, large eyes and eye regions of higher acuity are believed to facilitate the location of females. Here, we compare various features of male and female eyes in three sympatric carpenter bee species, which include two diurnal species (Xylocopa tenuiscapa and X. leucothorax) as well as a nocturnal species (X. tranquebarica). In X. tenuiscapa, males have larger eyes than females, while in the nocturnal X. tranquebarica, males have slightly smaller eyes and in X. leucothorax, the eyes are of similar size in both sexes. X. tenuiscapa males detect females by perching near nest sites (resource defence) or along fly-ways and other open areas with good visibility. Males of the other two species search for females by patrolling. We postulate that the larger eyes of male X. tenuiscapa are beneficial to their mode of mate detection since perching males may benefit from a larger visual area of high resolution detecting moving stimuli across the sky, and which may be germane to the more social and gregarious nesting behaviour of this species, compared to the other solitary bees. We tested the performance of the eyes of male X. tenuiscapa behaviourally and find that a perching male can detect a flying female at a distance of 20 m, which darkens the visual field of a single ommatidium by just 2%. This, together with the bee's high spatial resolution permits detection of moving stimuli at least as well or even better than achieved by honey bee drones.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.