Wind drives temporal variation in pollinator visitation in a fragmented tropical forest.

Wind is a critical factor in the ecology of pollinating insects such as bees. However, the role of wind in determining patterns of bee abundance and floral visitation rates across space and time is not well understood. Orchid bees are an important and diverse group of neotropical pollinators that harvest pollen, nectar and resin from plants.

Kinematic flexibility allows bumblebees to increase energetic efficiency when carrying heavy loads.

Foraging bees fly with heavy loads of nectar and pollen, incurring energetic costs that are typically assumed to depend on load size. Insects can produce more force by increasing stroke amplitude and/or flapping frequency, but the kinematic response of a given species is thought to be consistent. We examined bumblebees () carrying both light and heavy loads and found that stroke amplitude increased in proportion to load size, but did not predict metabolic rate.

Hummingbird flight stability and control in freestream turbulent winds.

Airflow conditions close to the Earth's surface are often complex, posing challenges to flight stability and control for volant taxa. Relatively little is known about how well flying animals can contend with complex, adverse air flows, or about the flight control mechanisms used by animals to mitigate wind disturbances. Several recent studies have examined flight in the unsteady von Kármán vortex streets that form behind cylinders, generating flow disturbances that are predictable in space and time; these structures are relatively rare in nature, because they occur only the immediate, downstream vicinity of an object.