Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Muscle Fatigue in the Latch-Mediated Spring Actuated Mandibles of Trap-Jaw Ants

Muscle Fatigue in the Latch-Mediated Spring Actuated Mandibles of Trap-Jaw Ants Muscle fatigue can reduce performance potentially affecting an organism's fitness. However, some aspects of fatigue could be overcome by employing a latch-mediated spring actuated (LaMSA) system where muscle activity is decoupled from movement. We estimated the effects of muscle fatigue on different aspects of mandible performance in six species of ants, two whose mandibles are directly actuated by muscles and four that have LaMSA “trap-jaw” mandibles. We found evidence that the LaMSA system of trap-jaw ants may prevent some aspects of performance from declining with repeated use, including duration, acceleration, and peak velocity. However, inter-strike interval increased with repeated strikes suggesting that muscle fatigue still comes into play during the spring loading phase. In contrast, one species with directly actuated mandibles showed a decline in bite force over time. These results have implications for design principles aimed at minimizing the effects of fatigue on performance in spring and motor actuated systems. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Integrative and Comparative Biology Oxford University Press

Muscle Fatigue in the Latch-Mediated Spring Actuated Mandibles of Trap-Jaw Ants

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/muscle-fatigue-in-the-latch-mediated-spring-actuated-mandibles-of-trap-xyqGbUY9hP

References (98)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.
ISSN
1540-7063
eISSN
1557-7023
DOI
10.1093/icb/icac091
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Muscle fatigue can reduce performance potentially affecting an organism's fitness. However, some aspects of fatigue could be overcome by employing a latch-mediated spring actuated (LaMSA) system where muscle activity is decoupled from movement. We estimated the effects of muscle fatigue on different aspects of mandible performance in six species of ants, two whose mandibles are directly actuated by muscles and four that have LaMSA “trap-jaw” mandibles. We found evidence that the LaMSA system of trap-jaw ants may prevent some aspects of performance from declining with repeated use, including duration, acceleration, and peak velocity. However, inter-strike interval increased with repeated strikes suggesting that muscle fatigue still comes into play during the spring loading phase. In contrast, one species with directly actuated mandibles showed a decline in bite force over time. These results have implications for design principles aimed at minimizing the effects of fatigue on performance in spring and motor actuated systems.

Journal

Integrative and Comparative BiologyOxford University Press

Published: Jun 11, 2022

There are no references for this article.