Meeting Abstract

55.6  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Mechanisms of gust rejection in the honey bee, Apis mellifera VANCE, Jason T.*; HUMBERT, J. Sean; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, College Park jvance@umd.edu

Insects’ ability to vary aerodynamic force production impacts flight-dependent behaviors, whether in response to task-specific demands such as load carriage, or in response to their dynamic and heterogeneous environments, such as turbulence and transient gusts of wind. The purpose of this study is to characterize the kinematic and aerodynamic mechanisms used by insects to reject gusts of wind. Honey bee foragers were flown in a clear, acrylic chamber and were perturbed with a low-pressure burst of compressed air to simulate a lateral wind gust. Body and wing kinematics were analyzed from flight sequences, recorded using three high-speed (6006 fps) digital video cameras. Here, we present bees’ response to lateral gusts that caused body rotation about the roll axis. To arrest the ‘gust-induced’ body roll, bees asymmetrically varied stroke amplitude, angle of attack, and lift between the right and left wings to generate a counter-torque and, subsequently, a ‘response-induced’ body roll in the opposite direction. These asymmetric wing strokes continued as body roll approached a horizontal orientation. However, this ‘response-induced’ body roll overshoots horizontal in a pendulum-like fashion; symmetric wing stroke kinematics were then employed throughout the following reversal in body roll and return to the horizontal roll orientation. Bees also extended their legs and increased their body angle (pitch axis) throughout the gust response, which increased inertia about the roll axis. These results suggest that gust rejection depends on a combination of mechanisms: an active phase characterized by the modulation of aerodynamic forces in direct response to the perturbation; and, a passive phase consisting of aerodynamic damping and inertial stabilization.