Meeting Abstract
Many flying insects frequently collide their wing tips with vegetation. Repeated collisions can cause the wings to wear down over time, which can reduce flight performance and increase the risk of mortality in bumblebees (and likely other insects as well). However, little is known about how wing size and wingbeat frequency – both correlated with body size – affect the rate of wing wear. To address this question, we used a high-speed motor to artificially induce damage in the wings of Bombus impatiens bumblebees by forcing them to repeatedly collide with a leaf surface 500,000 times. We spun wings from two different size groups (large and small) at two different speeds (fast and slow), to independently test the effects of wing size and wingbeat frequency. We found that the rate of wing wear depends on both wing size and rotational velocity, suggesting that insect wings may experience size-dependent selective pressures associated with collision-induced wing damage.
