Meeting Abstract
All flying animals move through complex environments. Air turbulence, crowded migrations, cluttered forests, and other factors challenge locomotion in nature and require animals to effect rapid neuromuscular responses that maintain or restore control when navigating unsteady conditions. By studying how bats perform recovery maneuvers following perturbations, we stand to gain insight into how they maintain control when challenged by unexpected flight disruptions and therefore make steps toward a broader understanding of flight in complex, naturalistic conditions. Here, we studied how bats alter wingbeat kinematics to recover from perturbations that impart rapid changes in orientation. We developed an experimental system in which we administered well-defined gusts to steadily flying Carollia perspicillata, which induced behavior that we term “aerial stumbles”, and we determined which wing movements they employ to recover. Perturbations to one wing induced body roll, and bats recovered within one wingbeat (~0.1 s) by employing left-right asymmetry in wing extension, but not in humeral elevation and depression (flapping angle). During recovery, bats selectively extended one wing using a combination of humeral protraction, elbow extension, and digit abduction. This period of asymmetrical extension was concurrent with periods of sustained body roll that resulted in recovery. The muscle groups that drive wing extension/retraction in bats are distinct from those that control wing elevation/depression. Abandoning symmetrical wing extension while preserving symmetry for flapping angle to recover from roll-dominated perturbations indicates that bats can independently coordinate these degrees of freedom, which may be under distinct of neural control during unsteady locomotion.
