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Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading

Insects evolved various modifications to their mouthparts, allowing for a broad exploration of feeding modes. In ants, workers perform non-reproductive tasks like excavation, food processing, and juvenile care, relying heavily on their mandibles. Given the importance of biting for ant workers and th...

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Autores principales: Klunk, C. L., Argenta, M. A., Rosumek, F. B., Schmelzle, S., van de Kamp, T., Hammel, J. U., Pie, M. R., Heethoff, M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10558566/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37803099
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43944-8
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author Klunk, C. L.
Argenta, M. A.
Rosumek, F. B.
Schmelzle, S.
van de Kamp, T.
Hammel, J. U.
Pie, M. R.
Heethoff, M.
author_facet Klunk, C. L.
Argenta, M. A.
Rosumek, F. B.
Schmelzle, S.
van de Kamp, T.
Hammel, J. U.
Pie, M. R.
Heethoff, M.
author_sort Klunk, C. L.
collection PubMed
description Insects evolved various modifications to their mouthparts, allowing for a broad exploration of feeding modes. In ants, workers perform non-reproductive tasks like excavation, food processing, and juvenile care, relying heavily on their mandibles. Given the importance of biting for ant workers and the significant mandible morphological diversity across species, it is essential to understand how mandible shape influences its mechanical responses to bite loading. We employed Finite Element Analysis to simulate biting scenarios on mandible volumetric models from 25 ant species classified in different feeding habits. We hypothesize that mandibles of predatory ants, especially trap-jaw ants, would perform better than mandibles of omnivorous species due to their necessity to subdue living prey. We defined simulations to allow only variation in mandible morphology between specimens. Our results demonstrated interspecific differences in mandible mechanical responses to biting loading. However, we found no evident differences in biting performance between the predatory and the remaining ants, and trap-jaw mandibles did not show lower stress levels than other mandibles under bite loading. These results suggest that ant feeding habit is not a robust predictor of mandible biting performance, a possible consequence of mandibles being employed as versatile tools to perform several tasks.
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spelling pubmed-105585662023-10-08 Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading Klunk, C. L. Argenta, M. A. Rosumek, F. B. Schmelzle, S. van de Kamp, T. Hammel, J. U. Pie, M. R. Heethoff, M. Sci Rep Article Insects evolved various modifications to their mouthparts, allowing for a broad exploration of feeding modes. In ants, workers perform non-reproductive tasks like excavation, food processing, and juvenile care, relying heavily on their mandibles. Given the importance of biting for ant workers and the significant mandible morphological diversity across species, it is essential to understand how mandible shape influences its mechanical responses to bite loading. We employed Finite Element Analysis to simulate biting scenarios on mandible volumetric models from 25 ant species classified in different feeding habits. We hypothesize that mandibles of predatory ants, especially trap-jaw ants, would perform better than mandibles of omnivorous species due to their necessity to subdue living prey. We defined simulations to allow only variation in mandible morphology between specimens. Our results demonstrated interspecific differences in mandible mechanical responses to biting loading. However, we found no evident differences in biting performance between the predatory and the remaining ants, and trap-jaw mandibles did not show lower stress levels than other mandibles under bite loading. These results suggest that ant feeding habit is not a robust predictor of mandible biting performance, a possible consequence of mandibles being employed as versatile tools to perform several tasks. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10558566/ /pubmed/37803099 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43944-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Klunk, C. L.
Argenta, M. A.
Rosumek, F. B.
Schmelzle, S.
van de Kamp, T.
Hammel, J. U.
Pie, M. R.
Heethoff, M.
Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title_full Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title_fullStr Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title_full_unstemmed Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title_short Simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
title_sort simulated biomechanical performance of morphologically disparate ant mandibles under bite loading
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10558566/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37803099
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43944-8
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