The Biomechanics of Bat Flight: Skeletal Architecture and Functional Performance

蝙蝠飞行的生物力学：骨骼结构和功能表现

• 批准号: 9119413
• 负责人: Sharon Swartz
• 金额: $ 19.04万
• 依托单位: Brown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-03-15 至 1995-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9119413&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Biomechanics; Bat; Flight; Skeletal; Architecture

Flight is a truly distinctive locomotor mode: it makes extreme demands on an organism's morphology and physiology, and produces profound ecological and behavioral consequences. In the hundreds of millions of years that vertebrates have inhabited the earth, only three lineages have evolved the capability of sustained flight: the extinct pterosaurs among reptiles; the birds; and within mammals, the (Order Chiroptera). Perhaps because of the ecological opportunities available to nocturnal flying animals, the success of bats has been extraordinary by any measure. Today, bats are more abundant than any other mammalian order in number of individuals and are second only to the rodents in number of species, with over 900 species of living bats described. Furthermore, bats are more widely distributed than any other mammals except humans and cetaceans (whales and porpoises). Most authors have attributed the tremendous evolutionary radiation of bats to the key adaptive innovation of powered flight, even while our understanding of this evolutionary transformation has remained rudimentary. Bats fly using wings that are clearly derived from successive modifications of the primitive mammalian limb design, retaining the basic topological interrelationship of forelimb skeletal elements even while certain aspects of the morphology of the bony elements and the surrounding soft tissues have been greatly altered. In particular, changes have occurred in the proportions and shape of the limb skeleton; the geometry and mobility of the forelimb joints; the attachment points, internal architecture, and physiological capabilities of muscle tissue; and the distribution of mass within the body. We have yet to explore how the wing skeleton functions during flight or the nature of the bony material in wings. This project will test the hypothesis that skeletal composition and limb bone architecture in bats relate directly to the strenuous mechanical demands placed on the wing skeleton during flight. We will explore the possibility that the mineral content and basic properties of bat wing bones differ significantly from other mammals, and determine the stress flight places on wing bones during flight. This case study will be an important test of the general hypothesis that the structural design of limbs in vertebrates is determined by the functional requirements of locomotion.

飞行是一种真正独特的运动模式：它对生物体的形态和生理学提出了极大的要求，并产生了深远的生态和行为后果。 在脊椎动物居住的数亿年中，只有三个谱系发展了持续飞行的能力：爬行动物中灭绝的翼龙；鸟；在哺乳动物中，（命令脊翅目）。 也许是因为夜间飞行动物的生态机会，无论如何，蝙蝠的成功都是非凡的。 如今，蝙蝠比任何其他个体的哺乳动物秩序都更丰富，仅次于啮齿动物的物种数量，其中有900多种生物蝙蝠。 此外，蝙蝠比人类和鲸类（鲸鱼和海豚）以外的任何其他哺乳动物的分布更广泛。 大多数作者都将蝙蝠的巨大进化辐射归因于动力飞行的主要适应性创新，即使我们对这种进化转变的理解仍然是基本的。 蝙蝠使用翅膀的飞行，这些翅膀是从原始哺乳动物肢体设计的连续修饰中得出的，即使骨质元素的形态和周围软组织的某些方面已经大大改变了前肢骨骼元素的基本拓扑相互关系。 特别是，肢体骨骼的比例和形状发生了变化。前肢关节的几何形状和迁移率；肌肉组织的附着点，内部结构和生理能力；以及体内质量的分布。 我们尚未探索机翼骨架在飞行过程中的功能或机翼中骨质材料的性质。 该项目将检验以下假设：蝙蝠中的骨骼组成和肢体结构直接与飞行过程中翼骨架上施加的剧烈机械需求有关。 我们将探讨蝙蝠翼骨骼的矿物质含量和基本特性与其他哺乳动物有显着不同的可能性，并确定飞行过程中翼骨架上的压力飞行位置。 该案例研究将是对一般假设的重要检验，即脊椎动物中四肢的结构设计取决于运动的功能要求。