Researchers discover the secret
behind the astonishing feats of nectar-feeding animals
Date: February 22, 2017
Source: University of Arizona
Quick! Name the top-performing
athletes in the animal kingdom. Cheetah? Try again. Blue whale? Nope.
Here's a clue: If you take a walk
in the desert on a moonlit night, you might see them, darting from flower to
flower and hovering in midair: moths of the hawkmoth family (Sphingidae).
Nectar-feeding moths, pollinating
bats and hummingbirds are masters in sustaining the most intense exercise of
all animals. To extract nectar from a flower, they must hover in front of the
flower before darting off to the next one. But how can these organisms perform
such feats on a diet that's mostly sugar?
New research by University of
Arizona biologists not only offers an explanation, but also suggests that these
animals stay healthy not despite, but because of, their sugary diet.
Oxygen, while necessary for life
to exist, is a double-edged sword. The more we engage in intense aerobic
exercise, such as hovering, the more oxygen reveals its ugly side in the form
of reactive oxygen species -- small reactive molecules that wreak havoc on
cells.
Researchers in the lab of Goggy
Davidowitz in the Department of Entomology in the UA's College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences discovered that hawkmoths (also known as Manduca moths) have
evolved a strategy that helps them minimize the muscle damage inflicted by the
oxidative stress generated during sustained flight. The results are published
in the journal Science.
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