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Visual summation in night-flying sweat bees: A theoretical study

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Author

Summary, in English

Bees are predominantly diurnal; only a few groups fly at night. An evolutionary limitation that bees must overcome to inhabit dim environments is their eye type: bees possess apposition compound eyes, which are poorly suited to vision in dim light. Here, we theoretically examine how nocturnal bees Megalopta genalis fly at light levels usually reserved for insects bearing more sensitive superposition eyes. We find that neural summation should greatly increase M. genalis's visual reliability. Predicted spatial summation closely matches the morphology of laminal neurons believed to mediate such summation. Improved reliability costs acuity, but dark adapted bees already suffer optical blurring, and summation further degrades vision only slightly. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

2298-2309

Publication/Series

Vision Research

Volume

46

Issue

14

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Zoology

Keywords

  • halictid bees
  • neural summation
  • nocturnal vision
  • noise
  • apposition compound eyes

Status

Published

Research group

  • Lund Vision Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1878-5646