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Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae)
Rose chafer beetles (Protetia cuprea) are pollinators as well as agricultural pests, flying between flowers and trees while foraging for pollen and fruits. Calculating the energy they expend on flying during foraging activity faces the challenge of measuring the metabolic rate (MR) of free‐flying in...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9790465/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35142427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1744-7917.13011 |
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author | Urca, Tomer Levin, Eran Ribak, Gal |
author_facet | Urca, Tomer Levin, Eran Ribak, Gal |
author_sort | Urca, Tomer |
collection | PubMed |
description | Rose chafer beetles (Protetia cuprea) are pollinators as well as agricultural pests, flying between flowers and trees while foraging for pollen and fruits. Calculating the energy they expend on flying during foraging activity faces the challenge of measuring the metabolic rate (MR) of free‐flying insects in an open space. We overcame this challenge by using the bolus injection of (13)C Na‐bicarbonate technique to measure their metabolic energy expenditure while flying in a large flight arena. Concurrently, we tracked the insects with high‐speed cameras to extract their flight trajectory, from which we calculated the mechanical power invested in flying for each flight bout. We found that the chemical (metabolic) energy input converted to mechanical flight energy output at a mean efficiency of 10.4% ± 5.2%, with a trend of increased efficiency in larger conspecifics (efficiency scaled with body mass to the power of 1.4). The transition in the summer from a diet of pollen to that of fruits may affect the energy budget available for foraging. Starved P. cuprea, feeding on apples ad libitum, increased their body mass by an average of 6% in 2 h. According to our calculations, such a meal can power a 630‐m flight (assuming a carbohydrate assimilation efficiency of 90%). Pollen, with a low water and carbohydrate content but rich in proteins and lipids, has a higher caloric content and should assimilate differently when converting food to flight fuel. The high cost of aerial locomotion is inherent to the foraging behavior of rose chafers, explaining their short flight bouts followed by prolonged feeding activity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9790465 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97904652022-12-28 Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) Urca, Tomer Levin, Eran Ribak, Gal Insect Sci Original Articles Rose chafer beetles (Protetia cuprea) are pollinators as well as agricultural pests, flying between flowers and trees while foraging for pollen and fruits. Calculating the energy they expend on flying during foraging activity faces the challenge of measuring the metabolic rate (MR) of free‐flying insects in an open space. We overcame this challenge by using the bolus injection of (13)C Na‐bicarbonate technique to measure their metabolic energy expenditure while flying in a large flight arena. Concurrently, we tracked the insects with high‐speed cameras to extract their flight trajectory, from which we calculated the mechanical power invested in flying for each flight bout. We found that the chemical (metabolic) energy input converted to mechanical flight energy output at a mean efficiency of 10.4% ± 5.2%, with a trend of increased efficiency in larger conspecifics (efficiency scaled with body mass to the power of 1.4). The transition in the summer from a diet of pollen to that of fruits may affect the energy budget available for foraging. Starved P. cuprea, feeding on apples ad libitum, increased their body mass by an average of 6% in 2 h. According to our calculations, such a meal can power a 630‐m flight (assuming a carbohydrate assimilation efficiency of 90%). Pollen, with a low water and carbohydrate content but rich in proteins and lipids, has a higher caloric content and should assimilate differently when converting food to flight fuel. The high cost of aerial locomotion is inherent to the foraging behavior of rose chafers, explaining their short flight bouts followed by prolonged feeding activity. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-03-26 2022-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9790465/ /pubmed/35142427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1744-7917.13011 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Insect Science published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Urca, Tomer Levin, Eran Ribak, Gal Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title | Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title_full | Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title_fullStr | Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title_full_unstemmed | Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title_short | Metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, Protaetia cuprea (Cetoniinae) |
title_sort | metabolic cost of flight and aerobic efficiency in the rose chafer, protaetia cuprea (cetoniinae) |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9790465/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35142427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1744-7917.13011 |
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