Collaborative Research: Computational Analysis of Maneuvering Flight

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。动物的机动能力可以决定它是否能成功地躲避捕食者、捕捉食物，以及其他决定生死的基本行为。大多数关于动物运动的生物力学研究都涉及弹道运动、短暂运动或稳态运动的开始或维持，因为这些可以在实验室中最容易地进行研究。因此，机动性是动物运动中最重要但却最不为人所知的方面之一。以前的研究主要沿着两个独立的方向发展：1)动物形态学的研究解释了身体和四肢的大小和形状如何影响机动的效率和动力学。神经肌肉生理学的研究揭示了动物为特定动作提供动力的机制。然而，有能力产生大量肌肉力量的动物，例如那些悬停或缓慢飞行的动物，可能能够克服由次优形态带来的效率成本，从而产生快速但低效的动作。提出的工作将检验一个假设，即当肌肉产生能量的能力较低时，由形态施加的限制是最强的。研究将集中在蜂鸟非凡的机动飞行上，因为这些动物生活在广阔的海拔范围内，这为不同的肌肉力量能力提供了自然实验。和安娜做实验？加利福尼亚的蜂鸟（Calypte anna）将决定海拔的影响以及机械和代谢约束对机动性能的独立影响。测量不同的安第斯蜂鸟动物群将允许确定巨大不同的形态如何影响跨越海拔的机动性能。生物学不同学科的一个共同要求是有一种定量描述行为的方法。该项目利用定制设计的自动运动分析来确定可操作性的基本构建块。发展这种方法将为研究动物的复杂运动提供广泛适用的工具。教育培训将促进来自弱势群体的博士后学者、研究生和本科生的科学发展。这些参与者将接受计算生物学和比较生物力学的综合培训。研究结果将用于开发一个用于高年级本科课程的教学模块。此外，学生和pi的成果将通过科学会议、学术出版物和公开讲座进行展示。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The ability of an animal to maneuver can determine its success at avoiding predators, catching food, and other fundamental behaviors that define the margin between life and death. Most research on the biomechanics of animal motion has concerned the initiation or maintenance of ballistic, brief, or steady state movements because these can be studied most readily in the laboratory. Maneuverability is therefore one of the most important but least understood aspects of animal locomotion. Previous research has progressed along two independent tracks: 1) Studies of animal morphology have explained how the size and shape of the body and the limbs influence the efficiency and dynamics of maneuvering. 2) Studies of neuromuscular physiology have revealed the mechanisms that animals use to power particular maneuvers. However, animals with the ability to generate substantial muscle power, such as those that hover or fly slowly, may be able to overcome efficiency costs imposed by suboptimal morphology to generate rapid but inefficient maneuvers. The proposed work will test the hypothesis that the limitations imposed by morphology are strongest when muscle power-generating capacity is low. Research will focus on the remarkable maneuvering flight of hummingbirds because these animals inhabit broad elevational ranges, which provide natural experiments for varying muscle power capacity. Experiments with Anna?s hummingbirds (Calypte anna) in California will determine the effects of elevation and the independent influences of mechanical and metabolic constraints on maneuvering performance. Measurements from the diverse Andean hummingbird fauna will allow for determination of how vastly different morphologies influence maneuvering performance across elevations. A common requirement of diverse disciplines of biology is to have a means of quantitatively describing behavior. This project utilizes a custom-designed, automated analysis of movement to identify the fundamental building blocks of maneuverability. Developing this approach will provide tools that are broadly applicable for studying complex movement in animals. The educational training will foster the scientific development of a postdoctoral scholar, graduate students, and undergraduate students from under-represented groups. These participants will receive integrative training in computational biology and comparative biomechanics. The results of the research will be used to develop a teaching module for use in upper division undergraduate courses. In addition, results produced by the students and the PIs will be presented via scientific conferences, scholarly publications, and public lectures.