Excavation mechanics of the elongated female rostrum of the acorn weevil Curculio glandium (Coleoptera; Curculionidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Elongated rostra (snouts) are remarkable features of many female weevils. The female of Curculio glandium uses the snout to excavate channels in acorns to oviposit. Considering the slenderness of the rostrum, the excavation of channels in solid substrates without buckling is a challenging task from both engineering and biological points of view. Here we aimed to examine the roles of the material properties and morphology of the rostrum in its buckling resistance. We employed microscopy techniques, non-destructive material characterisation and finite element (FE) modelling to shed more light on the excavation mechanics of the rostrum. We found that sexual dimorphisms are present not only in the length but also in the material, particularly the elastic modulus, and morphological features, particularly the curvature and thickness of the cuticular layers. Our FE modelling showed that those factors play essential roles to maximise the buckling resistance and minimise the bending resistance of the female rostrum. Considering that during excavation, the rostrum needs to be straightened without buckling, the functionality of the rostrum is likely to be a compromise between the flexibility and stiffness.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".