昆虫生理学生物学 (575).pdfVIP

The biomechanical design of an insect antenna as an odor capture device Catherine Loudon 21.1 Introduction Insect antennae are renowned for the specificity and sensitivity with which they detect airborne chemicals. Our abihty to evaluate how antennae function is improving due to increasing appreciation of the role of physical factors such as air speed or antennal size and geometry on odorant capture. In engineering terms, this exchange of material between the environment and an object is called mass transfer. The interception of airborne chemicals by sensory hairs on insect antennae may be treated as a mass transfer problem using a fluid mechanical approach. This approach is applicable to air because fluids include both gases and Hquids. The utihty of such an approach is that it results in quantitative predictions of the interception rate of these potentially informative molecules, i.e. odorants. Such predictions provide a null hypothesis against which to compare the actual performance of a sensory structure. That is, this approach will allow us to estimate the rate at which relevant molecules will reach a sensory surface, and with what kind of spatial or temporal pattern. It also allows us to make predictions about the functional consequences of behaviors (such as flight or wing fanning) or morphological attributes that will affect air flow in the vicinity of the antennae. In the biomechanical approach taken here it is assumed that any molecules that will eventually be interpreted as a chemical stimulus must first make physical 610 Insect Pheromone Biochemistry and Molecular Biology contact with the surface of the sensory hairs on an antenna. Alternative mechanisms that would allow molecules to be detected in the absence o