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Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass

Ants are well-known for their amazing load carriage performances. Yet, the biomechanics of locomotion during load transport in these insects has so far been poorly investigated. Here, we present a study of the biomechanics of unloaded and loaded locomotion in the polymorphic seed-harvesting ant Mess...

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Autores principales: Merienne, Hugo, Latil, Gérard, Moretto, Pierre, Fourcassié, Vincent
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7849507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33575127
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10664
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author Merienne, Hugo
Latil, Gérard
Moretto, Pierre
Fourcassié, Vincent
author_facet Merienne, Hugo
Latil, Gérard
Moretto, Pierre
Fourcassié, Vincent
author_sort Merienne, Hugo
collection PubMed
description Ants are well-known for their amazing load carriage performances. Yet, the biomechanics of locomotion during load transport in these insects has so far been poorly investigated. Here, we present a study of the biomechanics of unloaded and loaded locomotion in the polymorphic seed-harvesting ant Messor barbarus (Linnaeus, 1767). This species is characterized by a strong intra-colonial size polymorphism with allometric relationships between the different body parts of the workers. In particular, big ants have much larger heads relative to their size than small ants. Their center of mass is thus shifted forward and even more so when they are carrying a load in their mandibles. We investigated the dynamics of the ant center of mass during unloaded and loaded locomotion. We found that during both unloaded and loaded locomotion, the kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy of the ant center of mass are in phase, which is in agreement with what has been described by other authors as a grounded-running gait. During unloaded locomotion, small and big ants do not display the same posture. However, they expend the same amount of mechanical energy to raise and accelerate their center of mass per unit of distance and per unit of body mass. While carrying a load, compared to the unloaded situation, ants seem to modify their locomotion gradually with increasing load mass. Therefore, loaded and unloaded locomotion do not involve discrete types of gait. Moreover, small ants carrying small loads expend less mechanical energy per unit of distance and per unit of body mass and their locomotion thus seem more mechanically efficient.
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spelling pubmed-78495072021-02-10 Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass Merienne, Hugo Latil, Gérard Moretto, Pierre Fourcassié, Vincent PeerJ Animal Behavior Ants are well-known for their amazing load carriage performances. Yet, the biomechanics of locomotion during load transport in these insects has so far been poorly investigated. Here, we present a study of the biomechanics of unloaded and loaded locomotion in the polymorphic seed-harvesting ant Messor barbarus (Linnaeus, 1767). This species is characterized by a strong intra-colonial size polymorphism with allometric relationships between the different body parts of the workers. In particular, big ants have much larger heads relative to their size than small ants. Their center of mass is thus shifted forward and even more so when they are carrying a load in their mandibles. We investigated the dynamics of the ant center of mass during unloaded and loaded locomotion. We found that during both unloaded and loaded locomotion, the kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy of the ant center of mass are in phase, which is in agreement with what has been described by other authors as a grounded-running gait. During unloaded locomotion, small and big ants do not display the same posture. However, they expend the same amount of mechanical energy to raise and accelerate their center of mass per unit of distance and per unit of body mass. While carrying a load, compared to the unloaded situation, ants seem to modify their locomotion gradually with increasing load mass. Therefore, loaded and unloaded locomotion do not involve discrete types of gait. Moreover, small ants carrying small loads expend less mechanical energy per unit of distance and per unit of body mass and their locomotion thus seem more mechanically efficient. PeerJ Inc. 2021-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC7849507/ /pubmed/33575127 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10664 Text en ©2021 Merienne et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Merienne, Hugo
Latil, Gérard
Moretto, Pierre
Fourcassié, Vincent
Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title_full Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title_fullStr Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title_full_unstemmed Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title_short Dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant Messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
title_sort dynamics of locomotion in the seed harvesting ant messor barbarus: effect of individual body mass and transported load mass
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7849507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33575127
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10664
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