Visual ecology of Indian carpenter bees I: Light intensities and flight activity.
Somanathan, Hema LU ; Borges, Renée Maria ; Warrant, Eric LU
and Kelber, Almut
LU
(2008)
In Journal of Comparative Physiology A
194(1).
p.97-107
- Abstract
- Bees are mostly active during the daytime, but nocturnality has been reported in some bee families. We studied temporal flight activity in three species of carpenter bees (genus Xylocopa) in relation to light intensities. X. leucothorax is diurnal, X. tenuiscapa is largely diurnal being only occasionally crepuscular, while X. tranquebarica is truly nocturnal. Occasional forays into dim light by X. tenuiscapa are likely to be due to the availability of richly rewarding Heterophragma quadriloculare (Bignoniaceae) flowers, which open at night. X. tranquebarica can fly even during the moonless parts of nights when light intensities were lower than 10−5 cd m−2, which makes this species the only truly nocturnal bee known so far. Other known... (More)
- Bees are mostly active during the daytime, but nocturnality has been reported in some bee families. We studied temporal flight activity in three species of carpenter bees (genus Xylocopa) in relation to light intensities. X. leucothorax is diurnal, X. tenuiscapa is largely diurnal being only occasionally crepuscular, while X. tranquebarica is truly nocturnal. Occasional forays into dim light by X. tenuiscapa are likely to be due to the availability of richly rewarding Heterophragma quadriloculare (Bignoniaceae) flowers, which open at night. X. tranquebarica can fly even during the moonless parts of nights when light intensities were lower than 10−5 cd m−2, which makes this species the only truly nocturnal bee known so far. Other known dim-light species fly during crepuscular or moonlit periods. We compare eye and body sizes with other known diurnal and dim-light bees. We conclude that while extremely large ocellar diameters, large eye size:body size ratio, large number of ommatidia and large ommatidial diameters are all adaptations to dim-light foraging, these alone do not sufficiently explain the flights of X. tranquebarica in extremely dim light. We hypothesise that additional adaptations must confer extreme nocturnality in X. tranquebarica. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1022396
- author
- Somanathan, Hema
LU
; Borges, Renée Maria
; Warrant, Eric
LU
and Kelber, Almut
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2008
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Apoidea · Bees · Compound eyes · Nocturnality · Xylocopa
- in
- Journal of Comparative Physiology A
- volume
- 194
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 97 - 107
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000252452200009
- scopus:38049179122
- pmid:18094978
- ISSN
- 1432-1351
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00359-007-0291-1
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- af577c68-68bb-426a-bd5a-da15bfca68e3 (old id 1022396)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 14:05:01
- date last changed
- 2022-01-27 22:44:36
@article{af577c68-68bb-426a-bd5a-da15bfca68e3,
abstract = {{Bees are mostly active during the daytime, but nocturnality has been reported in some bee families. We studied temporal flight activity in three species of carpenter bees (genus Xylocopa) in relation to light intensities. X. leucothorax is diurnal, X. tenuiscapa is largely diurnal being only occasionally crepuscular, while X. tranquebarica is truly nocturnal. Occasional forays into dim light by X. tenuiscapa are likely to be due to the availability of richly rewarding Heterophragma quadriloculare (Bignoniaceae) flowers, which open at night. X. tranquebarica can fly even during the moonless parts of nights when light intensities were lower than 10−5 cd m−2, which makes this species the only truly nocturnal bee known so far. Other known dim-light species fly during crepuscular or moonlit periods. We compare eye and body sizes with other known diurnal and dim-light bees. We conclude that while extremely large ocellar diameters, large eye size:body size ratio, large number of ommatidia and large ommatidial diameters are all adaptations to dim-light foraging, these alone do not sufficiently explain the flights of X. tranquebarica in extremely dim light. We hypothesise that additional adaptations must confer extreme nocturnality in X. tranquebarica.}},
author = {{Somanathan, Hema and Borges, Renée Maria and Warrant, Eric and Kelber, Almut}},
issn = {{1432-1351}},
keywords = {{Apoidea · Bees · Compound eyes ·
Nocturnality · Xylocopa}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{97--107}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Journal of Comparative Physiology A}},
title = {{Visual ecology of Indian carpenter bees I: Light intensities and flight activity.}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-007-0291-1}},
doi = {{10.1007/s00359-007-0291-1}},
volume = {{194}},
year = {{2008}},
}