scholarly journals Morphological and kinematic basis of the hummingbird flight stroke: scaling of flight muscle transmission ratio

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1735) ◽  
pp. 1986-1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyson L. Hedrick ◽  
Bret W. Tobalske ◽  
Ivo G. Ros ◽  
Douglas R. Warrick ◽  
Andrew A. Biewener

Hummingbirds (Trochilidae) are widely known for their insect-like flight strokes characterized by high wing beat frequency, small muscle strains and a highly supinated wing orientation during upstroke that allows for lift production in both halves of the stroke cycle. Here, we show that hummingbirds achieve these functional traits within the limits imposed by a vertebrate endoskeleton and muscle physiology by accentuating a wing inversion mechanism found in other birds and using long-axis rotational movement of the humerus. In hummingbirds, long-axis rotation of the humerus creates additional wing translational movement, supplementing that produced by the humeral elevation and depression movements of a typical avian flight stroke. This adaptation increases the wing-to-muscle-transmission ratio, and is emblematic of a widespread scaling trend among flying animals whereby wing-to-muscle-transmission ratio varies inversely with mass, allowing animals of vastly different sizes to accommodate aerodynamic, biomechanical and physiological constraints on muscle-powered flapping flight.

The Auk ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
W Douglas Robinson ◽  
Bryan Rourke ◽  
Jeffrey A Stratford

Abstract The capacity for flight varies widely among bird species and influences their ecology, evolution, and conservation. Variation in vagility is influenced by behavioral responses to the nature of gaps between habitat elements as well as intrinsic characteristics of the species, particularly physiological traits influencing the physical capacity for sustained flight. Here, we briefly summarize the current state of knowledge revealing the wide variety of movement capacities of Neotropical birds. We then review current knowledge of avian muscle physiology and the role that muscle characteristics may play in influencing movement behavior. We argue that fundamental shifts in our understanding of avian muscle physiology and the influence of physiology on movement behavior remain to be elucidated, in part because knowledge from other vertebrates is being inappropriately applied to birds. In particular, critical evaluation of assumptions applied to birds from detailed studies of mammals is needed. Moving away from simple binary categorizations of avian flight muscles as “red vs. white” or “fast vs. slow” to characterize the cellular mechanisms and specific isoforms active at various life stages or seasons is also needed. An increasingly large number of avian species with a wide array of flight styles from hummingbirds to soaring raptors are appearing in GenBank, facilitating detailed physiological and evolutionary comparisons among species. Properly assessing the muscle physiological characteristics of Neotropical bird species with a wide array of movement capacities may improve our abilities to predict which species are most sensitive to landscape fragmentation and other factors that influence dispersal and migration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Schuppe ◽  
Amy R. Rutter ◽  
Thomas J. Roberts ◽  
Matthew J. Fuxjager

Understanding how and why behavioral traits diversify during the course of evolution is a longstanding goal of organismal biologists. Historically, this topic is examined from an ecological perspective, where behavioral evolution is thought to occur in response to selection pressures that arise through different social and environmental factors. Yet organismal physiology and biomechanics also play a role in this process by defining the types of behavioral traits that are more or less likely to arise. Our paper explores the interplay between ecological, physiological, and mechanical factors that shape the evolution of an elaborate display in woodpeckers called the drum. Individuals produce this behavior by rapidly hammering their bill on trees in their habitat, and it serves as an aggressive signal during territorial encounters. We describe how different components of the display—namely, speed (bill strikes/beats sec–1), length (total number of beats), and rhythm—differentially evolve likely in response to sexual selection by male-male competition, whereas other components of the display appear more evolutionarily static, possibly due to morphological or physiological constraints. We synthesize research related to principles of avian muscle physiology and ecology to guide inferences about the biomechanical basis of woodpecker drumming. Our aim is to introduce the woodpecker as an ideal study system to study the physiological basis of behavioral evolution and how it relates to selection born through different ecological factors.


Author(s):  
Robert Hard ◽  
Gerald Rupp ◽  
Matthew L. Withiam-Leitch ◽  
Lisa Cardamone

In a coordinated field of beating cilia, the direction of the power stroke is correlated with the orientation of basal body appendages, called basal feet. In newt lung ciliated cells, adjacent basal feet are interconnected by cold-stable microtubules (basal MTs). In the present study, we investigate the hypothesis that these basal MTs stabilize ciliary distribution and alignment. To accomplish this, newt lung primary cultures were treated with the microtubule disrupting agent, Colcemid. In newt lung cultures, cilia normally disperse in a characteristic fashion as the mucociliary epithelium migrates from the tissue explant. Four arbitrary, but progressive stages of dispersion were defined and used to monitor this redistribution process. Ciliaiy beat frequency, coordination, and dispersion were assessed for 91 hrs in untreated (control) and treated cultures. When compared to controls, cilia dispersed more rapidly and ciliary coordination decreased markedly in cultures treated with Colcemid (2 mM). Correlative LM/EM was used to assess whether these effects of Colcemid were coupled to ultrastructural changes. Living cells were defined as having coordinated or uncoordinated cilia and then were processed for transmission EM.


Author(s):  
Edna S. Kaneshiro

It is currently believed that ciliary beating results from microtubule sliding which is restricted in regions to cause bending. Cilia beat can be modified to bring about changes in beat frequency, cessation of beat and reversal in beat direction. In ciliated protozoans these modifications which determine swimming behavior have been shown to be related to intracellular (intraciliary) Ca2+ concentrations. The Ca2+ levels are in turn governed by the surface ciliary membrane which exhibits increased Ca2+ conductance (permeability) in response to depolarization. Mutants with altered behaviors have been isolated. Pawn mutants fail to exhibit reversal of the effective stroke of ciliary beat and therefore cannot swim backward. They lack the increased inward Ca2+ current in response to depolarizing stimuli. Both normal and pawn Paramecium made leaky to Ca2+ by Triton extrac¬tion of the surface membrane exhibit backward swimming only in reactivating solutions containing greater than IO-6 M Ca2+ Thus in pawns the ciliary reversal mechanism itself is left operational and only the control mechanism at the membrane is affected. The topographic location of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels has been identified as a component of the ciliary mem¬brane since the inward Ca2+ conductance response is eliminated by deciliation and the return of the response occurs during cilia regeneration. Since the ciliary membrane has been impli¬cated in the control of Ca2+ levels in the cilium and therefore is the site of at least one kind of control of microtubule sliding, we have focused our attention on understanding the structure and function of the membrane.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 5242-5258
Author(s):  
R. Ravivarman ◽  
K. Palaniradja ◽  
R. Prabhu Sekar

As lined, higher transmission ratio drives system will have uneven stresses in the root region of the pinion and wheel. To enrich this agility of uneven stresses in normal-contact ratio (NCR) gearing system, an enhanced system is desirable to be industrialized. To attain this objective, it is proposed to put on the idea of modifying the correction factor in such a manner that the bending strength of the gearing system is improved. In this work, the correction factor is modified in such a way that the stress in the root region is equalized between the pinion and wheel. This equalization of stresses is carried out by providing a correction factor in three circumstances: in pinion; wheel and both the pinion and the wheel. Henceforth performances of this S+, S0 and S- drives are evaluated in finite element analysis (FEA) and compared for balanced root stresses in parallel shaft spur gearing systems. It is seen that the outcomes gained from the modified drive have enhanced performance than the standard drive.


Author(s):  
Vandana Daulatabad ◽  
Prafull K. ◽  
Dr. Surekha S. Kadadi-Patil ◽  
Ramesh S. Patil

Introduction: Medical Education is witnessing a significant transition and global shift towards competency based medical education (CBME) which includes early clinical exposure (ECE) program to help students apply and correlate principles of preclinical subjects with clinical scenarios, in various forms and in a variety of settings. One of the easy and feasible methods of ECE being Case Based Learning (CBL), our study aimed to design a case scenario and to evaluate impact of case base learning as a part of ECE module in first year undergraduate medical teaching program in nerve muscle physiology. Methods: The present study was conducted in 96 students at Ashwini Rural Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Solapur after obtaining institutional ethics committee approval. 3 hrs session of CBL was conducted for a case scenario on myasthenia gravis in the nerve muscle physiology module. The students’ responses on pre-test, post-test and their insights regarding the CBL were taken through a pre validated questionnaire using 5-point Likert scale. Results: High impact of CBL was seen as significant improvement in student’s performance. Maximum students felt CBL to be easy method of learning and was highly appreciated through their feedback. Conclusion: CBL was found to have positive impact on understanding and perception of topic. CBL helped students to understand, evaluate, analyze, diagnose and interpret the case, paving them towards newer approach of self-directed and vertical integrated learning. CBL is easier, feasible an effective method among other early clinical exposure methods as it involves students in deeper and self-directed active learning, encouraging and promoting them to reach higher levels of cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy. This method will be very useful in its practical implementation during online classes for ECE module in the threat of COVID 19 situation as well.


2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wallenberg ◽  
Michelle Dafov ◽  
David Malone ◽  
John Craddock

A harzburgite intrusion, which is part of the trailside mafic complex) intrudes ~2900-2950 Ma gneisses in the hanging wall of the Laramide Bighorn uplift west of Buffalo, Wyoming. The harzburgite is composed of pristine orthopyroxene (bronzite), clinopyroxene, serpentine after olivine and accessory magnetite-serpentinite seams, and strike-slip striated shear zones. The harzburgite is crosscut by a hydrothermally altered wehrlite dike (N20°E, 90°, 1 meter wide) with no zircons recovered. Zircons from the harzburgite reveal two ages: 1) a younger set that has a concordia upper intercept age of 2908±6 Ma and a weighted mean age of 2909.5±6.1 Ma; and 2) an older set that has a concordia upper intercept age of 2934.1±8.9 Ma and a weighted mean age 2940.5±5.8 Ma. Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) was used as a proxy for magmatic intrusion and the harzburgite preserves a sub-horizontal Kmax fabric (n=18) suggesting lateral intrusion. Alternating Field (AF) demagnetization for the harzburgite yielded a paleopole of 177.7 longitude, -14.4 latitude. The AF paleopole for the wehrlite dike has a vertical (90°) inclination suggesting intrusion at high latitude. The wehrlite dike preserves a Kmax fabric (n=19) that plots along the great circle of the dike and is difficult to interpret. The harzburgite has a two-component magnetization preserved that indicates a younger Cretaceous chemical overprint that may indicate a 90° clockwise vertical axis rotation of the Clear Creek thrust hanging wall, a range-bounding east-directed thrust fault that accommodated uplift of Bighorn Mountains during the Eocene Laramide Orogeny.


2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 429-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisuke Kushiro ◽  
Jun Maruta

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-365
Author(s):  
Guangxin Wang ◽  
Lili Zhu ◽  
Peng Wang ◽  
Jia Deng

Background: Nutation drive is being extensively investigated due to its ability to achieve a high reduction ratio with a compact structure and the potential for low vibration, high efficiency and design flexibility. However, many problems including the difficulty to process the inner bevel gear, less number of teeth in engagement and not being suitable for high-power transmission have restricted its development. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contact strength of a patent about a new nutation drive developed based on meshing between two face gears, which has the advantages of both face gear and nutation drive, including large transmission ratio, large coincidence, small size, compact structure and strong bearing capacity. Methods: Based on the meshing principle and basic structure of the nutation face gear drive, the contact strength of nutation face gear transmission is analyzed by the Hertz contact analysis method and FEM method. Results: The maximum stress values of nutation face gear teeth are compared by two methods, which verify the accuracy of Hertz contact analytical method in calculating the contact strength of nutation face gear teeth. Furthermore, nine groups of three-dimensional models for the nutation face gear drive with a transmission ratio of 52 and different cutter parameters are established. Conclusion: The study analyzes the contact stress of fixed and rotary face gears in meshing with planetary face gears, and obtains the distribution law of contact stress and the influence of the number of teeth and parameters of the cutter on the load-carrying capacity.


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