蜂鸟有两种主要的觅食策略:地域性(保卫一片花朵)和穿越(在孤立的斑块的常规回路中觅食)。物种通常被归类为雇用一个或另一个。这些策略不仅在行为文献中被不一致地定义,但是这个简单的框架也忽略了蜂鸟表现出灵活觅食行为的大量证据。尽管有这些限制,关于蜂鸟觅食的研究探索了两种策略的支持者可能面临的不同选择途径:最大限度地提高觅食效率,和领土主义者赞成资源防御的速度和机动性。在早期的研究中,这些功能主要通过机翼圆盘载荷(体重与机翼扫过的圆形面积之比,WDL)和预测的悬停成本,trapliners预计将表现出比领土主义者更低的WDL,从而降低徘徊成本。虽然这些开创性的模型继续在当前的研究中发挥作用,早期研究受到适度技术的限制,当应用于复杂的蜂鸟组合时,对WDL的最初期望并没有保持。当前的技术进步允许对蜂鸟飞行的生物力学/能量学进行创新研究,例如异速缩放关系(例如,机翼区域-飞行性能)以及高爆裂提升性能与地域性之间的联系。提供基于这些关系的预测框架将使我们能够重新审视以前的假设,并探索不同觅食策略的生物力学权衡,这可能会产生不同的选择路线,以选择典型的地域性和穿越性。使用生物力学和形态功能晶状体,在这里,我们研究了决定蜂鸟觅食的运动和充满活力的方面,并提供(A)关于行为的预测,生物力学,以及具有地域性和traplining的形态功能关联;以及(b)提出的测试方法。通过追求这些知识差距,未来的研究可以使用各种特征来帮助澄清地域性和穿越性的操作定义,更好地将它们应用于该领域。
Hummingbirds have two main foraging strategies: territoriality (defending a patch of flowers) and traplining (foraging over routine circuits of isolated patches). Species are often classified as employing one or the other. Not only have these strategies been inconsistently defined within the behavioral literature, but this simple framework also neglects the substantial evidence for flexible foraging behavior displayed by hummingbirds. Despite these limitations, research on hummingbird foraging has explored the distinct avenues of selection that proponents of either strategy presumably face: trapliners maximizing foraging efficiency, and territorialists favoring speed and maneuverability for resource defense. In earlier studies, these functions were primarily examined through wing disc loading (ratio of body weight to the circular area swept out by the wings, WDL) and predicted hovering costs, with trapliners expected to exhibit lower WDL than territorialists and thus lower hovering costs. While these pioneering models continue to play a role in current research, early studies were constrained by modest technology, and the original expectations regarding WDL have not held up when applied across complex hummingbird assemblages. Current technological advances have allowed for innovative research on the biomechanics/energetics of hummingbird flight, such as allometric scaling relationships (e.g., wing area-flight performance) and the link between high burst lifting performance and territoriality. Providing a predictive framework based on these relationships will allow us to reexamine previous hypotheses, and explore the biomechanical trade-offs to different foraging strategies, which may yield divergent routes of selection for quintessential territoriality and traplining. With a biomechanical and morphofunctional lens, here we examine the locomotor and energetic facets that dictate hummingbird foraging, and provide (a) predictions regarding the behavioral, biomechanical, and morphofunctional associations with territoriality and traplining; and (b) proposed methods of testing them. By pursuing these knowledge gaps, future research could use a variety of traits to help clarify the operational definitions of territoriality and traplining, to better apply them in the field.