Morphological Determinants of Flight Performance and Fitnessin Pieris Butterflies

包括蝴蝶在内的许多昆虫都以躲避飞行为手段 躲避鸟类和蜘蛛等潜在的捕食者。许多 翅膀的大小和形状，身体的大小和形状，以及飞行 行为与成功的捕食者回避相关，但它 目前还不清楚具体的尺寸和形状 确定躲避飞行能力和逃脱捕食。在 建议的研究，我们将实验性地操纵机翼的大小， 身体质量在西方白色蝴蝶测试两个竞争 关于捕食者的形态决定因素的假设- 规避：翼载（机身质量与机翼面积之比）， 飞行肌肉比率（飞行肌肉质量与全身的比率 质量）。通过在实验室和现场进行这些操作， 我们将确定机翼载荷和飞行肌肉比率如何影响 飞行性能，捕食率，生存和繁殖。

Many insects, including butterflies, use evasive flight as a means of avoiding potential predators like birds and spiders. Many aspects of wing size and shape, body size and shape, and flight behavior are correlated with successful predator avoidance, but it is not clear what specific aspects of size and shape actually determine evasive flight ability and escape from predation. IN the proposed research, we shall experimentally manipulate wing size and body mass in Western White butterflies to test two competing hypotheses about the morphological determinants of predator- evasion: wing-loading (the ratio of body mass to wing area) and flight muscle ratio (the ratio of flight muscle mass to total body mass). By doing these manipulations in both the lab and the field, we shall determine how wing-loading and flight muscle ratio affect flight performance, predation rates, and survival and reproduction.