Biomechanics of biting in dragonflies, mayflies and silverfish - gaining insights into the structural basis of insect head evolution

昆虫几乎占地球上所有动物的三分之二。最早的昆虫谱系（包括蜻蜓、蜉蝣和银鱼）出现在4亿多年前。昆虫由于其作为植物的传粉者或疾病携带者的作用而被深入研究。然而，从生物力学的角度来看，对昆虫的了解很少。他们的身体计划，例如头部系统，显示出显着的形态多样性和不同的头部系统的精确的生物力学特性是不清楚的。关于头部的各个部分如何协同工作以及昆虫卓越的叮咬能力是如何实现的，目前还知之甚少。该项目将利用最新的成像和工程建模技术，开发第一个昆虫头部的计算模型，预测叮咬过程中头部的肌肉活动和应变，蜻蜓、蜉蝣和银鱼的关系和进化主要基于头部结构。然而，由于头部和口器的生物力学特征和关系尚不清楚，可以想象，我们目前对它们进化的看法是错误的。头部形态的相似性可能仅仅是由相似的机械要求引起的，而不是由血统的真实的共同祖先引起的。因此，该项目的目标是：（i）从生物力学的角度来理解昆虫头部，重点是头部形状，特定的几何细节，下颌骨关节和肌肉组织的类型的影响;（ii）揭示头部特征相互依赖的功能信息，以澄清有关昆虫头部进化的理论。

Insects account for nearly two thirds of all animal life on earth. The earliest insect lineages (which include dragonflies, mayflies, and silverfish) appeared over 400 million years ago. Insects are intensively studied due to their roles as pollinators of plants or as disease carriers. However, insects are poorly understood from a biomechanical point of view. Their body-plan, for example the head system, shows a remarkable morphological diversity and the precise biomechanical properties of the different head systems are unclear. Very little is known on how the subparts of the head work together and how the remarkable biting abilities of insects are realised.This project will use the latest imaging and engineering modelling techniques to develop the first computational models of insect heads that will predict muscle activity and strain through the head during biting, and thereby reveal unique information on their biomechanics.The arguments used for reasoning the relationships and evolution of dragonflies, mayflies and silverfish are based mainly on head structures. However, since the biomechanical characteristics and relationships of the subparts of the head and mouthparts are unclear, it is conceivable that our current picture of their evolution is wrong. Similarities in the head morphology may simply be caused by similar mechanical requirements rather than real common ancestry of the lineages. Thus, the goals of this project are: (i) to understand the insect head from a biomechanical point of view, with a focus on the influence of head form, specific geometric details, type of mandible articulation and musculature; (ii) to reveal information on the functional dependence of head features to each other in order to clarify theories about insect head evolution.