Meeting Abstract
Altitudinal shifts present a potential means of tracking optimal temperatures over short geographic distances in response to warming climates. Although upslope shifts may allow organisms to escape rising temperatures, decreased air density at higher elevations increases aerodynamic and energetic costs of flight, potentially restricting upslope shifts for flying organisms. However, fliers could compensate for low air density through changes in morphology and kinematics. Bumblebees collected from high elevations have relatively larger wings than those from low elevations, likely to facilitate flight in thinner air. But whether such morphological changes result from developmental plasticity or adaptation is unknown. We caught queen Bombus vosnesesnkii from low (70 m asl) and high (1475 m asl) elevation sites in Oregon, USA. We reared colonies from these queens in common-garden conditions in the laboratory and then subsequently measured flight morphology and kinematics in high elevation (2100 m) conditions. We will discuss how morphology (body mass, wing area, and wing moments) differ between common-garden reared and field-collected bumblebees and how differences in morphology alter flight kinematics during hovering flight. Finally, we use a simplified aerodynamic model to estimate differences in energetics of flight between low and high elevation bees.
