Bumblebee flight performance in cluttered environments: effects of obstacle orientation, body size and acceleration

The Journal of Experimental Biology
J D CrallStacey A Combes

Abstract

Locomotion through structurally complex environments is fundamental to the life history of most flying animals, and the costs associated with movement through clutter have important consequences for the ecology and evolution of volant taxa. However, few studies have directly investigated how flying animals navigate through cluttered environments, or examined which aspects of flight performance are most critical for this challenging task. Here, we examined how body size, acceleration and obstacle orientation affect the flight of bumblebees in an artificial, cluttered environment. Non-steady flight performance is often predicted to decrease with body size, as a result of a presumed reduction in acceleration capacity, but few empirical tests of this hypothesis have been performed in flying animals. We found that increased body size is associated with impaired flight performance (specifically transit time) in cluttered environments, but not with decreased peak accelerations. In addition, previous studies have shown that flying insects can produce higher accelerations along the lateral body axis, suggesting that if maneuvering is constrained by acceleration capacity, insects should perform better when maneuvering around objects late...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 16, 2016·Biology Letters·Andrew M MountcastleStacey A Combes
Aug 17, 2016·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·V M Ortega-JimenezR Dudley
Feb 23, 2019·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Camille Le RoyViolaine Llaurens
Jun 21, 2020·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Nicholas P BurnettStacey A Combes
Aug 16, 2018·Frontiers in Physiology·Elisa FrasnelliFinlay J Stewart
Jan 27, 2019·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Sridhar RaviMartin Egelhaaf
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Sep 4, 2021·Communications Biology·Robert SiddallArdian Jusufi
Sep 29, 2021·Learning & Behavior·Martin Giurfa, Marion Luyat

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