ArticleDie Naturwissenschaften2017
Sexual selection on receptor organ traits: younger females attract males with longer antennae.
Article in Die Naturwissenschaften, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Why the Long "Horns"? Fine-Scale Morphology Suggests Tactile Demands Contributed to the Exaggeration of Male Longhorned Beetle Antennae (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae).Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Olfactory performance explains duality of antennal architectural designs in Lepidoptera.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Antennal sensilla diversity in diurnal and nocturnal fireflies (Coleoptera, Lampyridae).PloS one · 2025Article
- Chemical communication and its role in sexual selection across Animalia.Communications biology · 2023Review
- Experimental immune challenges reduce the quality of male antennae and female pheromone output.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Review
- A Cretaceous bug with exaggerated antennae might be a double-edged sword in evolution.iScience · 2021Article
- Socially cued anticipatory adjustment of female signalling effort in a moth.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Insect Antennal Morphology: The Evolution of Diverse Solutions to Odorant Perception.The Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2018Review
- Antennal scales improve signal detection efficiency in moths.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Anticipatory flexibility: larval population density in moths determines male investment in antennae, wings and testes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sexual selection theory predicts that female choice may favour the evolution of elaborate male signals. Darwin also suggested that sexual selection can favour elaborate receiver structures in order to better detect sexual signals, an idea that has been largely ignored. We evaluated this unorthodox perspective by documenting the antennal lengths of male Uraba lugens Walker (Lepidoptera: Nolidae) moths that were attracted to experimentally manipulated emissions of female sex pheromone. Either one or two females were placed in field traps for the duration of their adult lives in order to create differences in the quantity of pheromone emissions from the traps. The mean antennal length of males attracted to field traps baited with a single female was longer than that of males attracted to traps baited with two females, a pattern consistent with Darwin's prediction assuming the latter emits higher pheromone concentrations. Furthermore, younger females attracted males with longer antennae, which may reflect age-specific changes in pheromone emission. These field experiments provide the first direct evidence of an unappreciated role for sexual selection in the evolution of sexual dimorphism in moth antennae and raise the intriguing possibility that females select males with longer antennae through strategic emission of pheromones.
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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.