The role of wingbeat frequency and amplitude in flight power

Krishnan, Krishnamoorthy; Garde, Baptiste; Bennison, Ashley ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9713-8310; Cole, Nik C.; Cole, Emma-L.; Darby, Jamie; Elliott, Kyle H.; Fell, Adam; Gómez-Laich, Agustina; de Grissac, Sophie; Jessopp, Mark; Lempidakis, Emmanouil; Mizutani, Yuichi; Prudor, Aurélien; Quetting, Michael; Quintana, Flavio; Robotka, Hermina; Roulin, Alexandre; Ryan, Peter G.; Schalcher, Kim; Schoombie, Stefan; Tatayah, Vikash; Tremblay, Fred; Weimerskirch, Henri; Whelan, Shannon; Wikelski, Martin; Yoda, Ken; Hedenström, Anders; Shepard, Emily L. C.. 2022 The role of wingbeat frequency and amplitude in flight power. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 19 (193). 15, pp. 10.1098/rsif.2022.0168

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Text (Open Access) © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. rsif.2022.0168.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (989kB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Body-mounted accelerometers provide a new prospect for estimating power use in flying birds, as the signal varies with the two major kinematic determinants of aerodynamic power: wingbeat frequency and amplitude. Yet wingbeat frequency is sometimes used as a proxy for power output in isolation. There is, therefore, a need to understand which kinematic parameter birds vary and whether this is predicted by flight mode (e.g. accelerating, ascending/descending flight), speed or morphology. We investigate this using high-frequency acceleration data from (i) 14 species flying in the wild, (ii) two species flying in controlled conditions in a wind tunnel and (iii) a review of experimental and field studies. While wingbeat frequency and amplitude were positively correlated, R2 values were generally low, supporting the idea that parameters can vary independently. Indeed, birds were more likely to modulate wingbeat amplitude for more energy-demanding flight modes, including climbing and take-off. Nonetheless, the striking variability, even within species and flight types, highlights the complexity of describing the kinematic relationships, which appear sensitive to both the biological and physical context. Notwithstanding this, acceleration metrics that incorporate both kinematic parameters should be more robust proxies for power than wingbeat frequency alone.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1098/rsif.2022.0168
ISSN:	1742-5662
Additional Keywords:	energy expenditure, accelerometry, kinematics, bio-logging, movement ecology
Date made live:	01 Sep 2022 15:30 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533121

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