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Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective

The quality of nest soils has significant effects on reproductive success in mud dauber species. This study investigated the physical and mechanical properties of the nest soils used by mud daubers from a geotechnical engineering perspective. One hundred thirty-one nests of black and yellow mud daub...

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Autores principales: Park, Joon S., Saleh, Noura S., Lin, Hai, Alqrinawi, Hussein, Lord, Nathan P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8828900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35140268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06162-2
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author Park, Joon S.
Saleh, Noura S.
Lin, Hai
Alqrinawi, Hussein
Lord, Nathan P.
author_facet Park, Joon S.
Saleh, Noura S.
Lin, Hai
Alqrinawi, Hussein
Lord, Nathan P.
author_sort Park, Joon S.
collection PubMed
description The quality of nest soils has significant effects on reproductive success in mud dauber species. This study investigated the physical and mechanical properties of the nest soils used by mud daubers from a geotechnical engineering perspective. One hundred thirty-one nests of black and yellow mud daubers were collected from five locations in the south of Louisiana. Moisture and organic contents, densities, void ratios, plasticity, grain size distributions, soil classifications, and penetration resistances of the nest soils were measured. Also, the performance of mud daubers’ nest-compaction method (i.e., repetitive tapping produced by the front legs and mandibles) was evaluated by comparing the densities and penetration resistances between mud dauber nests and Proctor compacted nest soil samples. Scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction were used to measure the morphology, elemental composition, and mineralogy of the nest soils. Mud dauber nests were made of hard and very stiff well-graded silty soils. The high strengths and high densities of mud dauber nests were attributed to repetitive tapping (similar to vibratory compaction in geotechnical engineering) used by mud daubers for nest construction, high capillary cohesion in the nest soils, well-graded soil grain size distribution, and clay minerals serving as cementing agents in the nest soils.
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spelling pubmed-88289002022-02-14 Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective Park, Joon S. Saleh, Noura S. Lin, Hai Alqrinawi, Hussein Lord, Nathan P. Sci Rep Article The quality of nest soils has significant effects on reproductive success in mud dauber species. This study investigated the physical and mechanical properties of the nest soils used by mud daubers from a geotechnical engineering perspective. One hundred thirty-one nests of black and yellow mud daubers were collected from five locations in the south of Louisiana. Moisture and organic contents, densities, void ratios, plasticity, grain size distributions, soil classifications, and penetration resistances of the nest soils were measured. Also, the performance of mud daubers’ nest-compaction method (i.e., repetitive tapping produced by the front legs and mandibles) was evaluated by comparing the densities and penetration resistances between mud dauber nests and Proctor compacted nest soil samples. Scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction were used to measure the morphology, elemental composition, and mineralogy of the nest soils. Mud dauber nests were made of hard and very stiff well-graded silty soils. The high strengths and high densities of mud dauber nests were attributed to repetitive tapping (similar to vibratory compaction in geotechnical engineering) used by mud daubers for nest construction, high capillary cohesion in the nest soils, well-graded soil grain size distribution, and clay minerals serving as cementing agents in the nest soils. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8828900/ /pubmed/35140268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06162-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 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
Park, Joon S.
Saleh, Noura S.
Lin, Hai
Alqrinawi, Hussein
Lord, Nathan P.
Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title_full Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title_fullStr Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title_full_unstemmed Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title_short Investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
title_sort investigating physical and mechanical properties of nest soils used by mud dauber wasps from a geotechnical engineering perspective
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8828900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35140268
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06162-2
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