Meeting Abstract
How does maneuverability evolve? A challenge to understanding maneuverability is that it encompasses diverse and transient behaviors. We used machine vision to record thousands of flight maneuvers by over 200 hummingbirds from 25 different species, to evaluate the influence of shared biomechanical traits. There are two benefits of this comparative approach: (1) evolution has repeatedly altered different traits in different species, making it possible to disentangle the effects of multiple traits; and (2) by capturing variation within multiple species, we can evaluate as in a meta-analysis whether the effects of trait variation within species are consistent. Our analysis identifies correlated clusters of performance: one that includes translations and pitch upward rotations, dependent on species muscle capacity, and one that includes downward and yaw rotations and the use of complex turns, dependent on species wing loading. We also find that the use of two different types of complex turns, smooth arcing turns and sharp pitch-roll turns, is associated with the elevational environment, morphology, and skill. Together these results show that macroevolutionary changes in muscle and wing morphology affect different, correlated maneuvering behaviors, and that species and individuals play to their strengths.
