Journal article
Extreme positive allometry of animal adhesive pads and the size limits of adhesion-based climbing
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.113(5), pp.1297-1302
2016
Abstract
Organismal functions are size-dependent whenever body surfaces supply body volumes. Larger organisms can develop strongly folded internal surfaces for enhanced diffusion, but in many cases areas cannot be folded so that their enlargement is constrained by anatomy, presenting a problem for larger animals. Here, we study the allometry of adhesive pad area in 225 climbing animal species, covering more than seven orders of magnitude in weight. Across all taxa, adhesive pad area showed extreme positive allometry and scaled with weight, implying a 200-fold increase of relative pad area from mites to geckos. However, allometric scaling coefficients for pad area systematically decreased with taxonomic level and were close to isometry when evolutionary history was accounted for, indicating that the substantial anatomical changes required to achieve this increase in relative pad area are limited by phylogenetic constraints. Using a comparative phylogenetic approach, we found that the departure from isometry is almost exclusively caused by large differences in size-corrected pad area between arthropods and vertebrates. To mitigate the expected decrease of weight-specific adhesion within closely related taxa where pad area scaled close to isometry, data for several taxa suggest that the pads' adhesive strength increased for larger animals. The combination of adjustments in relative pad area for distantly related taxa and changes in adhesive strength for closely related groups helps explain how climbing with adhesive pads has evolved in animals varying over seven orders of magnitude in body weight. Our results illustrate the size limits of adhesion-based climbing, with profound implications for large-scale bio-inspired adhesives.
Details
- Title
- Extreme positive allometry of animal adhesive pads and the size limits of adhesion-based climbing
- Authors
- David Labonte (Author) - University of Cambridge, United KingdomChristofer J Clemente (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringAlex Dittrich (Author) - Anglia Ruskin University, United KingdomChi-Yun Kuo (Author) - University of Massachusetts, United StatesAlfred J Crosby (Author) - University of Massachusetts, United StatesDuncan J Irschick (Author) - University of Massachusetts, United StatesWalter Federle (Author) - University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Publication details
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.113(5), pp.1297-1302
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Date published
- 2016
- DOI
- 10.1073/pnas.1519459113
- ISSN
- 0027-8424
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science and Engineering - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99449320802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
2 File views/ downloads
1177 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Zoology
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites