Interaction between arthropod filiform hairs in a fluid environment.
Many arthropods use filiform hairs as mechanoreceptors to detect air motion. In common house crickets (Acheta domestica) the hairs cover two antenna-like appendages called cerci at the rear of the abdomen. The biomechanical stimulus-response properties of individual filiform hairs have been investigated and modeled extensively in several earlier studies. However, only a few previous studies have considered viscosity-mediated coupling between pairs of hairs, and only in particular configurations. Here, we present a model capable of calculating hair-to-hair coupling in arbitrary configurations. We simulate the coupled motion of a small group of mechanosensory hairs on a cylindrical section of cercus. We have found that the coupling effects are non-negligible, and likely constrain the operational characteristics of the cercal sensory array.
Cummins
Bree
B
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59715, USA. bree@cns.montana.edu
Gedeon
Tomás
T
Klapper
Isaac
I
Cortez
Ricardo
R
D000392:Air Movements; D000818:Animals; D006135:Gryllidae / Q000502:physiology*; D006197:Hair / Q000502:physiology*; D008465:Mechanoreceptors / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009038:Motion; D014783:Viscosity