Meeting Abstract
Organisms that temporarily attach in order to move within their environment face potential failure with every step and release cycle. This potential for failure prompts unique morphological, biomechanical, and behavioral attachment structures and strategies that are likely tuned to current spatial and temporal conditions. Rather than studying the success of these systems in pristine laboratory conditions, I study failure in natural and semi-natural conditions to better understand the functional morphology of temporary adhesion. My observational and experimental work shows that biological attachment systems fail, sometimes spectacularly, but often remain successful in the conditions that matter. The focus of my research program is to understand the conditions that matter and how biological adhesive systems maintain high performance and versatility when it counts. Currently I use three biological adhesive systems to explore adhesive performance in challenging conditions: geckos, ants, and sea urchins. Each system offers a unique mechanism and set of challenges that must be overcome. For instance, geckos from the tropics must adhere in hot, humid, and wet conditions, tropical arboreal ants must adhere to superheated substrates, and sea urchins in the intertidal must adhere to rocky substrates while resisting intense wave forces. In all instances, failure is rare when the adhesive system is matched with common environmental conditions. When the biological adhesive system is not matched with common environmental conditions adhesive performance may be too low or too high to be biologically functional. By exploring the successes and failures of biological adhesive systems in complex environments, we improve our understanding of the functional morphology of these systems, providing valuable insight into the ecology and evolutionary development of adhesion and potential for bio-inspired synthetic design.
