Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on March 25, 2008
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(1):119-133; doi:10.1093/icb/icn011
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Published by Oxford University Press 2008.
This article appears in the following Integrative and Comparitive Biology issue: Aeroecology: Probing and Modeling the Aerosphere–The Next Frontier [View the issue table of contents]
Optimal strategies for insects migrating in the flight boundary layer: mechanisms and consequences
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*USDA-Agricultural Research Service, 1500 N. Central Avenue, Sidney, MT 59270, USA; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, 3060 Valley Life Sciences Building #3140, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Correspondence: 1E-mail: robert.srygley{at}ars.usda.gov
Directed aerial displacement requires that a volant organism's airspeed exceeds ambient wind speed. For biologically relevant altitudes, wind speed increases exponentially with increased height above the ground. Thus, dispersal of most insects is influenced by atmospheric conditions. However, insects that fly close to the Earth's surface displace within the flight boundary layer where insect airspeeds are relatively high. Over the past 17 years, we have studied boundary-layer insects by following individuals as they migrate across the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal. Although most migrants evade either drought or cold, nymphalid and pierid butterflies migrate across Panama near the onset of the rainy season. Dragonflies of the genus Pantala migrate in October concurrently with frontal weather systems. Migrating the furthest and thereby being the most difficult to study, the diurnal moth Urania fulgens migrates between Central and South America. Migratory butterflies and dragonflies are capable of directed movement towards a preferred compass direction in variable winds, whereas the moths drift with winds over water. Butterflies orient using both global and local cues. Consistent with optimal migration theory, butterflies and dragonflies adjust their flight speeds in ways that maximize migratory distance traveled per unit fuel, whereas the moths do not. Moreover, only butterflies adjust their flight speed in relation to endogenous fat reserves. It is likely that these insects use optic flow to gauge their speed and drift, and thus must migrate where sufficient detail in the Earth's surface is visible to them. The abilities of butterflies and dragonflies to adjust their airspeed over water indicate sophisticated control and guidance systems pertaining to migration.
From the symposium "Aeroecology: Probing and Modeling the Aerosphere – The Next Frontier" presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 2–6, 2008, at San Antonio, Texas.
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