Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28382942›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2017

Himalayan black bulbuls (Hypsipetes leucocephalus niggerimus) exhibit sexual dichromatism under ultraviolet light that is invisible to the human eye.

Hsin-Yi Hung, Carol K L Yeung, Kevin E Omland, Cheng-Te Yao, Chiou-Ju Yao, Shou-Hsien Li

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.5field-weighted citation impact, top 24% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.

Hsin-Yi HungDepartment of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 116, Taiwan.
Carol K L YeungNovogene Bioinformatics Institute, Beijing, 100083, P. R. China.
Kevin E OmlandDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 21250, USA.
Cheng-Te YaoDivision of Zoology, Endemic Species Research Institute, Nantou County, 55244, Taiwan.
Chiou-Ju YaoDepartment of Biology, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, 40453, Taiwan.
Shou-Hsien LiDepartment of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 116, Taiwan.
National Museum of Natural Science · TWNational Taiwan Normal University · TWNovogene Bioinformatics Institute · CNUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Sexual dichromatism is a key proxy for the intensity of sexual selection. Studies of dichromatism in birds may, however, have underestimated the intensity and complexity of sexual selection because they used museum specimens alone without taking colour-fading into account or only measured conspicuous visual traits in live animals. We investigated whether the Himalayan black bulbul (Hypsipetes leucocephalus nigerrimus), which is sexually monomorphic to the human eye, exhibits sexual dichromatism distinguishable by a spectrometer. We measured the reflectance (within both the human visual perceptive and the ultraviolet ranges) of two carotenoid-based parts and eight dull and melanin-based parts for each individual live bird or museum skin sampled. According to an avian model of colour discrimination thresholds, we found that males exhibited perceptibly redder beaks, brighter tarsi and darker plumage than did females. This suggests the existence of multiple cryptic sexually dichromatic traits within this species. Moreover, we also observed detectable colour fading in the museum skin specimens compared with the live birds, indicating that sexual dichromatism could be underestimated if analysed using skin specimens alone.

Indexed as

PasseriformesSex CharacteristicsUltraviolet RaysVision, OcularAnimalsBiological EvolutionFemaleHumansMalePigmentationSelection, Genetic

Identifiers

PMID28382942
PMCPMC5382547
OpenAlexW2605323007

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.