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

昆虫占地球上所有动物的近三分之二。最早的昆虫谱系(包括蜻蜓、蚂蚁和银鱼)出现在4亿多年前。昆虫因其作为植物传粉者或疾病携带者的角色而被广泛研究。然而，从生物力学的角度来看，人们对昆虫知之甚少。它们的身体平面，例如头部系统，显示出显著的形态多样性，不同头部系统的精确生物力学特性尚不清楚。对于头部各部分如何协同工作以及昆虫惊人的咬人能力是如何实现的，我们知之甚少。这个项目将利用最新的成像和工程建模技术来开发第一个昆虫头部的计算模型，这些模型将预测咬人过程中通过头部的肌肉活动和张力，从而揭示它们生物力学的独特信息。用于推理蜻蜓、蚂蚁和银鱼的关系和进化的论点主要基于头部结构。然而，由于头部和口腔各部分的生物力学特征和关系尚不清楚，可以想见，我们目前关于它们进化的图景是错误的。头部形态上的相似可能只是由于相似的机械要求而不是真正的共同血统造成的。因此，该项目的目标是：(I)从生物力学的角度了解昆虫头部，重点关注头部形状、特定几何细节、下颌关节类型和肌肉结构的影响；(Ii)揭示头部特征相互之间的功能依赖信息，以阐明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.