Honey bees (<i>Apis mellifera ligustica</i>) swing abdomen to dissipate residual flying energy landing on a wall

Zhao, Jieliang; He, Haiyan; Yan, Shaoze

doi:10.1063/1.4977844

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…From the controls perspective, smooth landing on such diverse substrates requires insects to rapidly sense and adaptively respond to the approaching objects. While landing, insects typically decelerate [4–9], extend their legs [1–3,6,8,10,11], and align their body parallel to the substrate [2,12]. Previous studies have suggested that landing behaviors can be subdivided into these distinct, independently-activated ‘modular’ behaviors [8] that must be mutually coordinated by their nervous system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landing maneuvers of houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Landing maneuvers of flies are complex behaviors which can be conceptually decomposed into sequences of modular actions, including body-deceleration, leg-extension, and body rotations. These behavioral ‘modules’ must be coordinated to ensure well-controlled landing. The composite nature of these behaviors induces kinematic variability, making it difficult to identify the central rules that govern landing. Many previous studies have relied on tethered preparations to study landing behaviors, but tethering induces experimental artefacts by forcing some behaviors to operate in open-feedback control loop while others remain closed-loop. On the other hand, it is harder for the experimenter to control the stimuli experienced by freely-flying insects. One approach towards understanding general mechanisms of landing is to determine the common elements of their kinematics on surfaces of different orientations. We conducted a series of experiments in which the houseflies, Musca domestica , were lured to land on vertical ( wall landings ) or inverted ( ceiling landings ) substrates, while their flight was recorded with multiple high-speed cameras. We observed that, in both cases, well-controlled landings occurred when the distance at which flies initiated deceleration was proportional to flight velocity component in the direction of substrate. The ratio of substrate distance and velocity at onset of deceleration ( tau ) was conserved, despite substantial differences in mechanics of vertical vs. ceiling landings. When these conditions were not satisfied, their landing performance was compromised, causing their heads to collide into the substrate. Unlike body-deceleration, leg-extension in flies was independent of substrate distance or approach velocity. Thus, the robust reflexive visual initiation of deceleration is independent of substrate orientation, and combines with a more variable initiation of leg-extension which depends on surface orientation. Together, these combinations of behaviors enable flies to land in a versatile manner on substrates of various orientations.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landing maneuvers of houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It has been previously suggested that landing behavior can be subdivided into many distinct, independently-activated behaviors, and may therefore be considered as ‘modular’ (van Breugel and Dickinson, 2012). While landing, insects typically reduce their approach velocities (Baird et al, 2013; Lee et al, 1991; Lee et al, 1993; Srinivasan et al, 2000; van Breugel and Dickinson, 2012; Wagner, 1982), extend their legs (Goodman, 1960; Evangelista et al, 2010; Hyzer, 1962; Lee et al, 1993; Reber et al, 2016a; Reber et al, 2016b; van Breugel and Dickinson, 2012), and align their body parallel the landing surface (Hyzer, 1962; Zhao et al, 2017). Moreover, insects land on objects of different textures, flexibility, and orientations including inverted surfaces (Evangelista et al, 2010; Hyzer, 1962; Reber et al, 2016a), suggesting a great degree of adaptability of their landing behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual control of landing maneuvers in houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

Balebail

Raja

Sane

2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Landing maneuvers in flies are complex behaviors that may be conceptually decomposed into a sequence of modular behaviors such as body deceleration, extension of legs, and body rotations which are coordinated to ensure controlled touchdown. The composite nature of these behaviors means that there is variability in the kinematics of landing maneuvers, making it difficult to identify the general rules that govern this behavior. Many previous studies have relied on tethered preparations to study landing behaviors, but tethering constrains some behavioral modules to operate in an open feedback control loop while others remain in closed-loop, thereby inducing experimental artefacts. On the other hand, freely flying insects are hard to precisely control, which may also increase behavioral variability. One approach towards understanding the general rules underlying landing behavior is to determine the common elements of landing kinematics on surfaces that are oriented in different ways. We conducted a series of experiments in which the houseflies, Musca Domestica, were lured to specific visual targets on either vertical or inverted horizontal substrates. These conditions elicited landing behaviors in the flies that could be captured accurately using multiple high-speed video cameras. We filmed the houseflies landing on surfaces oriented along two directions: vertical (vertical landings), and upside down (inverted landings). Our experiments reveal that flies that are able to land feet-first in a controlled manner must satisfy specific criteria, failing which their landing performance is compromised causing their heads to bump into the surface during landing. Flies landing smoothly on both surfaces initiate deceleration at approximately fixed distances from the substrate and in direct proportion to the component of flight velocity normal to the landing surface. The ratio of perpendicular distance to the substrate and velocity at the onset of deceleration was conserved, despite the large differences in the mechanics of the vertical vs. inverted landings. Flies extend their legs independently of distance from the landing surface or their approach velocity normal to the surface, regardless of the orientation of the landing substrate. Together, these results show that the visual initiation of deceleration is robust to orientation of the landing surface, whereas the initiation of leg-extension may be context-dependent and variable which allows flies to land on substrates of various orientations in a versatile manner. These findings may also be of interest to roboticists that are interested in developing flapping robots that can land on surfaces of different orientations.

show abstract

“… Taylor et al (2013) established a model to predict the abdomen response based on the non-linear combinations of air speed and optic flow. In addition, swinging motion of the honey bee abdomen was used to dissipate residual flying energy while landing ( Zhao et al 2017a ). Furthermore, Zhao et al (2015 , 2016 ) revealed the bending mechanism of honey bee abdomen and illustrated the importance of the folded intersegmental membrane (FIM) in honey bee abdominal motions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Mechanism Composed of Abdominal Cuticles and Muscles Simulates the Complex and Diverse Movements of Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L.) Abdomen

Liang

Meng

Zhao

et al. 2020

Journal of Insect Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The abdominal intersegmental structures allow insects, such as honey bees, dragonflies, butterflies, and drosophilae, to complete diverse behavioral movements. In order to reveal how the complex abdominal movements of these insects are produced, we use the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) as a typical insect to study the relationship between intersegmental structures and abdominal motions. Microstructure observational experiments are performed by using the stereoscope and the scanning electron microscope. We find that a parallel mechanism, composed of abdominal cuticle and muscles between the adjacent segments, produces the complex and diverse movements of the honey bee abdomen. These properties regulate multiple behavioral activities such as waggle dance and flight attitude adjustment. The experimental results demonstrate that it is the joint efforts of the muscles and membranes that connected the adjacent cuticles together. The honey bee abdomen can be waggled, expanded, contracted, and flexed with the actions of the muscles. From the view point of mechanics, a parallel mechanism is evolved from the intersegmental connection structures of the honey bee abdomen. Here, we conduct a kinematic analysis of the parallel mechanism to simulate the intersegmental abdominal motions.

show abstract

Honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica) swing abdomen to dissipate residual flying energy landing on a wall

Cited by 11 publications

References 33 publications

Landing maneuvers of houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

Landing maneuvers of houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

Visual control of landing maneuvers in houseflies on vertical and inverted surfaces

Parallel Mechanism Composed of Abdominal Cuticles and Muscles Simulates the Complex and Diverse Movements of Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L.) Abdomen

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About