PRF: The Role of Flight Muscle Ratios in Aerial Interactionsof Flying Insects

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.j.>Many insects capture prey, escape from predators, and compete for mates by utilizing short bursts of rapid maneuverable flight. Recent experimental results indicate that maximum short-burst flight performance depends strongly on flight muscle ratio (FMR; the ratio of flight muscle mass to body mass). This result suggests that animals with high FMRs should generally be able to outperform animals with lower FMRs in aerial contests. Three analyses will be used to explore this hypothesis. The first compares FMRs of prey captured by robber flies with FMRs of prey that escape, and with FMRs of all potential prey. How FMR variation among individual robber flies affects foraging success will be determined. The second study compares FMRs of palatable butterflies with FMRs of unpalatable butterflies, to determine if differences in predation frequency have resulted in variation in the way butterflies distribute mass among their tissues. The third study examines how interspecific variation in FMRs of male dragonflies varies with the spatial pattern of female oviposition. Females that oviposit selectively, in a few preferred sites, should impose strong selection for male traits that allow aerial defense of these sites. Results of these analyses may demonstrate that mass allocation is a basic and ecologically profound problem for flying insects, and perhaps for flying animals in general. Work will be performed at Brown University, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Smithsonial Tropical Research Institute in Panama.